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• Published: 02 August 2021

Effects of divorce and widowhood on subsequent health behaviours and outcomes in a sample of middle-aged and older Australian adults

• Ding Ding 1 , 2 ,
• Joanne Gale 1 , 2 ,
• Adrian Bauman 1 , 2 ,
• Philayrath Phongsavan 1 , 2 &
• Binh Nguyen 1 , 2  

Scientific Reports volume  11 , Article number:  15237 ( 2021 ) Cite this article

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• Epidemiology
• Risk factors

Marital disruption is a common life event with potential health implications. We examined the prospective association of divorce/widowhood with subsequent lifestyles, psychological, and overall health outcomes within short and longer terms using three waves of data from the 45 and Up Study in Australia (T1, 2006–09; T2, 2010; T3, 2012–16). Marital status and health-related outcomes were self-reported using validated questionnaires. Nine outcomes were examined including lifestyles (smoking, drinking, diet and physical activity), psychological outcomes (distress, anxiety and depression) and overall health/quality of life. Logistic regression was adjusted for sociodemographic characteristics and baseline health outcomes. Of the 33,184 participants who were married at T1 (mean age 59.5 ± 9.3 years), after 3.4 years, 2.9% became divorced and 2.4% widowed at T2. Recent divorce was positively associated with smoking, poor quality of life, high psychological distress, anxiety and depression at T2. Similar but weaker associations were observed for widowhood. However, these associations were much attenuated at T3 (5 years from T2). Marital disruption in midlife or at an older age can be detrimental to health, particularly psychological health in the short term. Public awareness of the health consequences of spousal loss should be raised. Resources, including professional support, should be allocated to help individuals navigate these difficult life transitions.

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Introduction.

Marital status and transitions may have important implications for health. It is generally well recognised that marriage can be protective for health and reduce morbidity and mortality 1 . Possible explanations for the beneficial effects of marriage may include a sense of greater social and financial support, overall healthier behavioural patterns, and self-selection where healthier individuals tend to marry 2 . In contrast, transitions out of marriage, such as becoming divorced or widowed, are stressful life events that have been associated with poor health and survival outcomes 1 , 3 , 4 . Marital disruption is a common life event: around 42% of marriages in England and Wales 5 and about a third of marriages in Australia end in divorce  6 . Between 1990 and 2010, the divorce rate in American adults aged 50 years and above doubled, implying a rising trend of “grey divorce” 7 . Even if a marriage survives without divorce, it will inevitably end with the death of a spouse, leaving the other one in widowhood, often for years. Several meta-analyses have shown that compared to married adults, divorced and widowed adults have a higher risk of mortality from all causes 1 , 8 , 9 and specific causes including cardiovascular disease (CVD) 4 and cancer 10 .

Contrary to the consistent observations about the disadvantage in health and survival following divorce or widowhood, the mechanisms underpinning these associations are less understood 11 . Amato’s Divorce-Stress-Adjustment Perspective postulates that the process of divorce leads to stressors, which in turn, increases emotional, behavioural and health risk. The risk, which could be either short- or long-term, may differ by individual characteristics and circumstances 12 . Within this model, psychological distress is a significant intermediate outcome of marital dissolution/bereavement, which may arise from financial and emotional challenges, and can lead to adverse health outcomes 11 . Another plausible intermediate outcome includes changes in lifestyle behaviours, which may be developed as a coping mechanism to deal with psychological distress, or a response to environmental, financial and other circumstantial changes. Such psychological and behavioural outcomes could in turn affect health, quality of life and wellbeing in the immediate-to-long term and longevity in the long term. To date, there has been limited longitudinal research on how divorce/widowhood affects both psychological wellbeing 13 and lifestyle behaviours 14 , 15 , 16 . Furthermore, individuals respond and adjust to marital disruption differently 12 . Specifically men and women may have different coping strategies to psychological stressors 17 , and suffer from different consequences as a result of marital disruption 18 . For example, recent marital disruption has been associated with increased alcohol intake 19 and decreased body mass index and vegetable intake in men 14 , and higher physical activity levels and a higher risk of smoking initiation/relapse in women 15 . Individuals with better socioeconomic status 20 and social resources, such as supportive friends 21 , have also been reported to better cope with marital disruption.

With most marriages ending in divorce or widowhood, understanding the implications of marital disruption on health has important relevance to the life of many around the world. To date, most research has focused on the more “distal” outcomes, such as mortality. It is important to investigate modifiable and immediate outcomes on the pathways that lead to ill-health so that health deterioration may be prevented. It is also informative to examine whether such potential health effects persist over time. Such knowledge could improve the current understanding of the effects of major life events on health and inform interventions that aim to help individuals during marriage disruption. Moreover, previous research more commonly focused on divorce in younger populations, while the body of literature on divorce in older populations is much smaller despite the large proportion and the rising trend in “grey divorce” 7 . The objectives of this study were to examine the association of divorce and widowhood with subsequent changes in groups of selected outcomes: (1) health-related lifestyles, (2) psychological health, and (3) overall health and wellbeing, within both immediate and longer terms in middle-aged and older Australian adults.

Study population

Study participants were a subsample from the Sax Institute’s 45 and Up Study. Between February 2006 and December 2009, 267,153 adults aged 45 years and above from the state of New South Wales, Australia, submitted the baseline survey (T1, participation rate: 18%) 22 . Prospective participants were randomly sampled from the Services Australia (formerly the Australian Government Department of Human Services) Medicare enrolment database, which provides near complete coverage of the population. People aged 80 and over and residents of rural and remote areas were oversampled. In 2010, the first 100,000 respondents were invited to participate in a sub-sample follow-up study (T2): the Social, Economic, and Environmental Factor study (SEEF) (participation rate: 64.4%) 23 . Between 2012 and 2016, all living baseline participants were invited to participate in a full-sample follow-up, and 142,500 (53%) returned the survey (T3). Participants completed consent forms for all surveys. The baseline and full-sample follow-up data collection was approved by the University of New South Wales Human Research Ethics Committee (reference: HREC 05035) and the SEEF study by the University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee (reference: 10-2009/12187). The reporting of our analysis follows the Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) guidelines (Supplementary file).

The study sample for the main analysis (Analysis 1) that focused on immediate outcomes included 33,184 men and women who reported to be in a married or cohabiting relationship at T1 and completed the marital status question at T2 (Supplementary Fig.  1 ). For those with additional follow-up data at T3, we conducted a subgroup analysis on the longer-term effects of marital disruption (Analysis 2) among those who reported to be married at T1, reported marital status at T2 and T3, and did not change marital status between T2 and T3 (Supplementary Fig.  2 ).

Sex-specific baseline and full-sample follow-up questionnaires can be found at https://www.saxinstitute.org.au/our-work/45-up-study/questionnaires/ . The SEEF questionnaire is included in Supplementary File.

Exposure variable

For the purpose of the study, both divorce/separation and widowhood were considered marital disruption 14 , 24 , but were considered as separate categories in the analysis because the two events usually happen at different stages in life within distinct circumstances and may have different implications on health 14 . For the purpose of the analysis, we combined those who were married and in a de facto relationship (living with a partner) together as “married”, because in Australia, those in a de facto relationship are considered legally similar to married couples 25 . In our sample, those in a de facto relationship are slightly younger than their legally married counterparts and account for 7% of the participants who were classified as “married” at T1. For Analysis 1, those who were married at both T1 and T2 were defined as “remained married”, those who were married at T1 but reported to be single, divorced or separated at T2 were defined as “recently divorced/seperated (‘divorced’ thereafter)” and those who were married at T1 but widowed at T2 were defined as “recently widowed”. For Analysis 2, those who reported to be in a married relationship at all three time points were defined as “continuously married”, and those who reported to be single, divorced or separated at T2 and T3 were defined as “remained divorced” and those who reported to be widowed at T2 and T3 were defined as “remained widowed”. Because the objective of Analysis 2 is to examine long-term implications of divorce and widowhood, we focused the analysis on those whose marital status remained the same between T2 and T3, and excluded those who became divorced or widowed between T2 and T3 due to the recency of events (n = 1768), those who remarried/re-partnered between T2 and T3 due to the lack of consistent exposure (n = 145), and those who changed between divorced and widowed because the events were difficult to interpret (n = 27).

Outcome measures

We examined nine self-reported outcome variables in three categories: (1) health-related lifestyles: smoking, alcohol consumption, diet and physical activity; (2) psychological outcomes: psychological distress, anxiety and depression; (3) overall health and wellbeing: self-rated health and quality of life. Responses were coded as 1 for being “at risk” and 0 for “not at risk”, as described in Table 1 .

Covariates and effect modifiers

The following variables were selected as covariates: age (continuous), sex, educational attainment (up to 10 years, high school/diploma/trade, university), residential location (major city vs regional/remote, based on the Accessibility Remoteness Index of Australia 26 ), country of birth (Australia vs overseas) and follow-up time. Specifically, we selected education, rather than income, as a socioeconomic indicator, because previous research repeatedly concluded that education generally has the strongest effects on health behaviors 27 , and it has nearly complete data in the 45 and Up Study. Therefore, it has been consistently recommended as a stable and reliable socioeconomic indicator for the current cohort 28 , 29 .

In addition, several variables were selected as potential effect modifiers based on evidence from previous studies, including: age categories, sex, educational attainment and social support 14 , 17 , 21 , 30 , 31 , 32 . Based on previous evidence suggesting that friends’, rather than family’s support buffers health deterioration following marriage disruption 21 , we used one question from the Duke Social Support Index 33 to measure social support outside of family. The question asks about the number of people outside of home within one hour of travel one can depend on or feel close to. Based on previous investigation in the SEEF study, this single question had the most consistent association with psychological distress across sex and age categories and was therefore chosen as an indicator for social support 34 . Responses were dichotomised at the median into low (0–4 people) and high (5 + people).

Statistical analysis

Baseline sociodemographic characteristics and health-related outcomes of the three marital transition groups were compared using ANOVA and χ 2 tests. For Analysis 1, those who remained married served as the reference category when comparing outcomes with those who became divorced and widowed. For Analysis 2, those who were “continuously married” between T1 and T3 served as the reference category when comparing outcomes with those who “remained divorced” or “remained widowed”. Separate binary logistic regression models were fitted for each dichotomous outcome, adjusted for all covariates and the value of each outcome at T1. Effect modification was tested by including a multiplicative interaction term in the adjusted model followed by a likelihood ratio test. Given the small amount of missing data (< 8%), we used missingness as a category for analysis. Considering that people who became divorced or widowed by T2 may be at a higher risk for death or loss to follow up by T3, posing threats to selection bias, we conducted additional analyses outlined in Supplementary file (page 5 “Methodological supplement”). All statistical analyses were conducted using SAS 9.4 and significance levels were set at p  < 0.05.

Ethical approval

Approved by the University of New South Wales Human Research Ethics Committee (reference: HREC 05035) and the SEEF study by the University of Sydney Human Research Ethics Committee (reference: 10-2009/12187).

Baseline descriptive statistics

Of the 33,184 participants who were married at baseline (T1, 2006–2009), after a mean follow-up time of 3.35 (standard deviation [SD] = 0.95) years, 31,760 (95.7%) remained married at the first follow-up (T2, 2010), 616 (2.9%) became divorced and 808 (2.4%) became widowed. At T1, compared with those who remained married, those who recently divorced were younger and had slightly higher levels of education, were less likely to live in major cities and more likely to be born overseas. On the contrary, those who recently widowed were much older, predominantly females, had lower educational attainment, and were less likely to live in major cities (Table 2 ).

At T1, compared with those who remained married, those who recently divorced had around twice the prevalence of fair/poor self-rated health and quality of life, high psychological distress, anxiety, depression, and reported smoking. They also had a slightly higher prevalence of high alcohol consumption, physical inactivity, and insufficient fruit and vegetable intake. Those who were recently widowed had a higher prevalence of fair/poor self-rated health and quality of life, high psychological distress, and physical inactivity, but lower prevalence of depression, smoking, at-risk alcohol consumption, and insufficient fruit and vegetable intake.

Analysis 1: short-term health outcomes following marital disruption

After adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics, health-related outcomes at T1, and follow-up time, those who recently divorced had much higher odds of fair/poor quality of life (Odds Ratio [OR] = 2.98), high psychological distress (OR = 2.78), smoking (OR = 2.40), anxiety (OR = 2.23) and depression (OR = 2.92) at T2 (Table 3 ). The associations of divorce with fair/poor self-rated health (OR = 1.22), high alcohol consumption (OR = 1.12), physical inactivity (OR = 1.04) and insufficient fruit and vegetable consumption (OR = 1.25) were non-significant. For nearly all outcomes, adjusting for covariates attenuated the associations. When comparing those who were recently widowed with those who remained married, based on adjusted analysis, recent widows had higher odds of fair/poor quality of life (OR = 1.80), high psychological distress (OR = 1.92), anxiety (OR = 1.55), depression (OR = 2.11), smoking (OR = 2.51), and insufficient fruit and vegetable consumption (OR = 1.60). Recent widows also had a marginally lower prevalence of high alcohol consumption at T2 (OR = 0.75).

Several sociodemographic characteristics seemed to have moderated the association between marital disruption and short-term health outcomes (Table 4 ). Specifically, the association between divorce and quality of life was the strongest (OR = 4.91) in the oldest group (75 + years), but the association between widowhood and quality of life was the strongest (OR = 3.35) in the youngest group (45–59 years). On the other hand, the associations of both divorce and widowhood with psychological distress were the strongest in the youngest group (OR = 2.98 and 3.53, respectively). The association between divorce and high psychological distress was stronger among those with lower education attainment (OR = 2.96, up to 10 years education; OR = 3.06, high school/diploma) but the association between widowhood and psychological distress was stronger among those with high educational attainment (OR = 4.20). The association of divorce with depression was much stronger in men (OR = 4.59) than women (OR = 1.60) but the association of widowhood was similar by sex. While there was no significant association between divorce and alcohol consumption, recent widowhood seemed to reduce the risk of high alcohol consumption among women (OR = 0.53). Finally, while there was no observed association between divorce and physical activity, widowhood was significantly associated with insufficient physical activity in those with a medium level of educational attainment only (OR = 1.46).

Analysis 2: long-term health outcomes following marital disruption

After an additional five years (mean = 4.98, SD = 0.53) of follow-up, a total of 21,605 participants reported marital status at the second follow-up (T3, 2012–2016) and did not change relationship status between T2 and T3, so that consistent relationship patterns could be determined and long-term outcomes of marital disruption that occurred between T2 and T3 could be examined. Of this subgroup of participants, 20,900 were consistently married (96.7%), 270 (1.25%) remained divorced and 435 (2.01%) remained widowed. The comparison of baseline characteristics across the three groups remained similar to that from Analysis 1 (Supplementary Table 1 ). When adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics, health-related outcomes at T1, and follow-up time, those who remained divorced still had higher odds for most adverse health outcomes compared with those who were consistently married (Table 5 ), but the associations were much weaker compared with those observed in Analysis 1, and only reached statistical significance for insufficient fruit and vegetable consumption (OR = 1.55). Compared with those who were consistently married, those who remained widowed did not have consistently higher odds for adverse health outcomes and none of the associations was statistically significant. We did not find significant effect modification by age, sex, educational attainment, or social support.

This study examined the short- and long-term health outcomes following divorce and widowhood in a large population-based Australian sample of older men and women. The findings revealed strong and adverse short-term effects of marital disruption on health outcomes, particularly within the psychological health domain. These effects seemed to attenuate in the longer term.

A number of studies have examined the associations between marital status or marriage disruption and health, with relatively consistent findings suggesting a protective effect of marriage, and respectively detrimental effects of marital disruption. For example, systematic reviews and meta-analyses have consistently found an elevated risk of all-cause mortality in adults who are divorced 35 or widowed 1 , 8 , 9 , and the effects seemed to be mostly consistent across countries and geographic areas 1 , 9 . Wong et al. extended the outcomes for CVD and found similar associations between marital status and CVD events and mortality 4 . Our current study has extended previous research by examining a broad range of relatively proximal outcomes, and in a population-based sample ranging from middle age to the “oldest old”. Examining proximal outcomes could help understand the potential mechanisms (e.g., psychological distress, unhealthy lifestyles) for the observed association between marital disruption and distal endpoints, such as mortality. Understanding the potential mechanisms has been considered an important research agenda for future studies 35 . Involving a large sample with a broad age range allows us to examine the effect of marital disruption at different life stages, including the less researched transitions, such as divorce at an old age (grey divorce) 7 and widowhood at a younger age.

To date, several proposed mechanisms might explain the health disparities by marital status 4 . The predominant debate has centered around social selection versus causation 36 . While selection theory suggests that people with poorer health are less likely to enter or maintain long-term partnerships 4 , 36 , social causation theory postulates that marriage and partnership benefit individuals’ health through spousal support, companionship and financial stability 36 , 37 , 38 . Within the causation theory framework, it has been proposed that the stress related to spousal loss could affect physical, mental, emotional and behavioural health 4 , 36 , 38 , 39 , 40 . In the current study we tested various components of these theories by: (1) comparing baseline characteristics of participants with different marriage transitions, (2) adjusting for potential confounders that could have caused self-selection into maintained partnership, such as socioeconomic status, and (3) comparing between those who have divorced and widowed, which involve different levels of self-selection.

Based on the baseline comparison of participants with different marital transition categories, those who became divorced at T2 appeared to be distinctly different from the other categories at T1: they had around twice the prevalence of fair/poor self-rated health and quality of life, high psychological distress, anxiety, depression, and current smoking, compared with those who remained married between T1 and T2. In most cases, they had much worse health risk profiles than those who became widowed, despite the latter being significantly older. Such observations may provide supportive evidence for the social selection theory. However, given that the deterioration of marriage is a gradual process, which started from the time when couples still lived together 12 , a dysfunctional relationship could have adversely affected physical and mental health years before divorce or separation formally took place 12 . In both short- and longer-term analyses, adjusted associations were much attenuated from the unadjusted associations, suggesting that the potential characteristics underlying social selection to marriages, such as socioeconomic status, may have partially contributed to the observed “marital disruption effects”. However, the adjusted associations remained strong in most cases, implying the plausibility for a causal relationship. Finally, we found generally similar patterns of associations for divorce and widowhood; if social selection was the sole explanation for the detrimental health effects of marital disruption, then one should expect strong effects of divorce but much weaker-to-no effects of widowhood, because spousal death is usually beyond the control of the surviving spouse 24 .

As an attempt to explore different mechanistic pathways, assuming that marital disruption is causally linked to health deterioration, we tested several domains of health outcomes: health-related lifestyle behaviours, psychological outcomes, and overall health and wellbeing. Our findings suggest that most of the observed “marital disruption effects” occurred within the psychological domain, with divorce and widowhood triggering initial elevations in psychological distress, anxiety and depression. The much higher odds of smoking among those who recently divorced or widowed, similar to findings from a previous study 15 , could also be stress-related 41 . Contrary to previous studies 14 , 15 , 42 , we found no overall associations between marital disruption and physical activity or alcohol consumption. We did, however, find a positive association between divorce/widowhood and insufficient fruit and vegetable consumption. Based on a small number of studies, vegetable consumption seemed to decline in men 14 and women 15 following divorce and widowhood, and the literature has cited a lack of food preparation skills among men 14 and meal skipping as a grief reaction among women 15 . Finally, within the overall health and wellbeing domain, recently divorced and widowed individuals suffered from worsening quality of life but not self-rated health. This could be because the self-rated health question focuses on the physical manifestation of health while the quality of life question holistically captures physical, mental, emotional and other aspects of health, which are more likely to be influenced by marital disruption.

An interesting finding is that although marital disruption seemed to have a detrimental effect on various health outcomes in the short-term, after a further five years of follow-up, the effects were attenuated, and in some cases, disappeared. These findings confirmed the “divorce-stress-adjustment perspective” 12 , which postulates that marital disruption led to multiple stressors (e.g., loss of custody of children, economic decline), which, in turn, lead to negative emotional, behavioural and health outcomes. The process of “adjustment” takes time, and its severity and duration differ by individual characteristics 12 . Previous research found a similar “time effect” (where the negative consequences of marital disruption was attenuated over time) with depression 43 , first-time myocardial infarction 44 but mixed results with mortality 40 , 45 . However, it is important to distinguish our study from those with morbidity or mortality endpoints, which take longer to manifest. Given that outcomes in our study are conceptually proximal, and that most people have the psychological resilience to eventually recover from marriage disruption 46 , we could expect on average a stronger effect in the short-term than the long-term.

However, it is important to acknowledge individual differences in resilience to stressful transitions like divorce and widowhood 46 . We have tested for several potential effect modifiers and found several outcome-specific interactions. For example, overall, younger participants (aged 45–59 years at T1) seemed to have suffered more from both divorce and widowhood in terms of worsening quality of life and increasing psychological distress. This finding is concordant with previous research on marital transition and mortality 9 . In terms of psychological distress, participants with high educational attainment seemed to have coped with divorce the best but widowhood the worst. This is a new and unexpected finding and may be related to the higher levels of independence, resources and support among those with higher socioeconomic status to cope with an expected traumatic event, such as divorce. Widowhood is less planned and more permanent and may exert severe emotional stress on individuals in the short-term, regardless of skills, resources and support. Divorce had a much stronger impact on depression in men than women, which is consistent with the literature on divorce and mortality 8 , 9 . It has been documented that men are more likely to dramatically lose supportive social ties 9 and experience declined social support from their children following a divorce 47 . Finally, interestingly, women who were widowed seemed to have benefited from reduced heavy alcohol consumption. A previous study in France found that women decreased heavy drinking prior to and at the time of widowhood 48 . Some evidence suggests that husbands may influence wives’ drinking behaviour 49 , it is plausible that the death of a husband may be associated with reduced drinking occasions.

Limitations

The current study is the first to our knowledge to examine short- and longer-term effects of marital disruption on a broad range of physical, psychological and behavioural health outcomes in middle-aged and older adults. Strengths include a population-based sample, comprehensive proximal health outcomes, and examination of both divorce and widowhood. However, findings should be interpreted in light of limitations. First, some relevant information was not collected by the 45 and Up Study, such as relationship quality, the exact time of marital transition (we could only infer that the event happened between T1 and T2), the long-term cumulative marital history (e.g., the total number of marriages and broken relationships) 35 . Such information is important to further elucidate whether the adverse health effects of marital disruption are due to social selection or causation. While this study focused on marital disruption, the other type of marital transition, namely remarriage could further affect health behaviours and outcomes. However, we did not model this transition because of the small number of participants who remarried and the lack of repeated measures to ascertain long-term effects of remarriage. Second, there was some evidence for selection bias as those who became divorced or widowed by T2 were more likely to become lost to follow-up by T3 (Supplementary file). Third, the number of participants who became divorced or widowed during the study follow-up was small, limiting the power of detecting potential associations and effect modification. Fourth, the 45 and Up Study cohort was not population representative and participants were on average healthier than the general population. However, a study comparing the current cohort with a population representative sample in New South Wales found the estimates for the associations between risk factors and health outcomes to be similar, despite the differences in risk factor prevalence 50 . Finally, it is important to note that the current study was conducted based on a sample aged 45 years and above and we only examined the effects of marital disruption in midlife and at an older age. Findings may not generalise to younger populations.

Conclusions

This current Australian study extends previous evidence on marital transition and health and suggests that marital disruption can be a vulnerable life stage, particularly for certain subgroups, such as men. Findings from the study have important public health implications. Given the ubiquitous and inevitable nature of marital disruption, it is important to raise public awareness of its potential health effects and develop strategies to help individuals navigate such difficult life transitions. Physicians and other health practitioners who have access to regularly updated patient information may play an important role in identifying at-risk individuals, monitoring their health and referring them to potential interventions and support programs.

Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the Sax Institute upon application and payment, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available. Data are however available from the authors upon reasonable request and with permission of the Sax Institute.

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Acknowledgements

This research was completed using data collected through the 45 and Up Study ( www.saxinstitute.org.au ). The 45 and Up Study is managed by the Sax Institute in collaboration with major partner Cancer Council NSW; and partners: the National Heart Foundation of Australia (NSW Division); NSW Ministry of Health; NSW Government Family & Community Services—Ageing, Careers and the Disability Council NSW; and the Australian Red Cross Blood Service. We thank the many thousands of people participating in the 45 and Up Study.

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D.D. conceptualised the research idea, D.D. and J.G. conducted data analysis, B.N. and D.D. conducted the literature review, D.D. drafted the manuscript with B.N. contributing to parts of the manuscript, all authors critically revised the manuscript and approved the final version of the manuscript.

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Ding, D., Gale, J., Bauman, A. et al. Effects of divorce and widowhood on subsequent health behaviours and outcomes in a sample of middle-aged and older Australian adults. Sci Rep 11 , 15237 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-93210-y

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Divorce and Close Relationships: Findings, Themes, and Future Directions

David A. Sbarra, Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

Connie J. A. Beck, PhD, Associate Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology, School of Mind, Brain, and Behavior, College of Science, University of Arizona, Tuscon, AZ

• Published: 01 August 2013
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This chapter provides an update on current research concerning marital dissolution: its history, epidemiology/demography, causes, correlates/consequences, and emerging themes in the literature (including cohabitation, stepfamilies, legal interventions for complex family situations, behavior and genetic studies of family functioning, and the potential mechanisms of child and adult resilience in the face of divorce). In the United States, the divorce rate rests near 40 percent of all first marriages; this statistic, however, masks considerable variability in risk for divorce as a function of education and socioeconomic standing, among other factors. Furthermore, the fastest growing family form in the United States is nonmarital unions, and relatively few high-quality data exist on the rates at which these relationships dissolve and how family arrangements (e.g., child custody) are decided in these situations. The chapter closes with a series of questions that are open for future research. We emphasize the need to conduct more research on prevention programs (including mandated parenting education programs and voluntary multisession group treatments for parents and children) and to develop a deeper understanding of how the intervention and prevention programs can be best applied to complex family situations.

Marital separation and divorce are major personal upheavals that have the potential to disrupt family functioning and to negatively affect both children’s and adults’ psychological and physical well-being. This chapter provides an update on current research concerning marital dissolution: its history, epidemiology/demography, causes, consequences, and emerging themes in the literature. Although the scope of the chapter is broad, we also aim to outline and highlight important questions for future research. To approach these tasks, we begin by discussing the history and demographics of marital separation and divorce.

Divorce: History and Demographics

Before the 1600s, in most European countries, divorce was governed by the Church of England or Catholic Church and was not permitted ( Amato & Irving, 2006 ). Marriage was defined as a relationship that lasted for life without the possibility of exit except through death. Although the American Colonies were established to gain religious freedom, religious traditions surrounding the regulation of divorce followed the Pilgrims into the New World. The Colonies were, however, split on whether a couple would be allowed to formally divorce, the reasons (grounds) a couple could divorce, and the authority given the responsibility for adjudicating cases.

Between 1600 and 1800 social reformers were successful in moving regulation of marriage and divorce from the control of the Church to colonial legislative authority and then eventually to the courts ( Ahrons, 1994 ). Although the move from Church control to legal control was successful, the change was difficult and was debated for centuries. In the mid-1800s social reformers Robert Dale Owen and Elizabeth Cady Stanton strongly argued that couples who did not want to remain married or were in a violent marriage must have the right to divorce ( Blake, 1977 ). Stanton continued to raise the issue of at the annual woman’s rights convention in 1860. The reasons or grounds under which a couple could divorce were determined colony by colony and sometimes differed for men and women. Whereas adultery was generally agreed to be a grounds for divorce for both men and women, women in some colonies needed additional grounds, such as bigamy and desertion, to be allowed to divorce ( Ahrons, 1994 ).

During the late nineteenth century, the general societal reaction to divorce began to shift. During this time the first collection of divorce statistics for any state was gathered for Connecticut ( Blake, 1977 ). These statistics revealed that in the period from 1849 to 1852, there were 544 divorces, followed by 1,235 for the period from 1861 to 1864. In 1880 another study of divorces in the New England states was published (Allen, 1880 cited in Blake 1977 ). Seizing on these statistics, reformers argued that the increase in divorce were the sole responsibility of lax divorce laws ( Blake, 1977 ). Divorce reform organizations were formed. In 1881 the New England Divorce Reform League was founded. In 1885 it was reorganized as the National Divorce Report League, later called the National League for the Protection of the Family. The focus of these organizations was to repeal what they saw as lenient, omnibus provisions, which allowed broader grounds for divorce in divorce laws, and to pass additional restrictions such as the Michigan statute, which provided safeguards against the parties colluding and manufacturing evidence and allowing the state to defend certain cases ( Blake, 1977 ).

In 1887 Congress allotted $10,000 to the Commissioner of Labor Carroll D. Wright to collect marriage and divorce statistics for the States and Territories and the District of Columbia and increased the sum to $17,500 the following year ( Blake, 1977 ). Statistics were collected from 2,700 counties for a 20-year period. In doing so Wright sent workers directly to the counties to review records; however, several county courthouses had burned down (e.g., Cook County, Chicago, and Hamilton County, Cincinnati). In addition only twenty-one of the thirty-eight states required registration of marriages ( Blake, 1977 ). Even with these limitations, the data were important.

Many of the themes existing in early divorce laws can still be found today. As a result of liberal residence requirements, for many years Reno, Nevada was the place people could go for a “quick” divorce ( Blake, 1977 ). In addition, the more recent no-fault divorce grounds are essentially the modern-day equivalent of the omnibus clauses found in early statutes. Arguments concerning whether strict divorce laws can curb divorce still rage. In response to these arguments, several states passed covenant marriage laws, which add restrictions and processes to divorce ( Nock, Sanchez, & Wright, 2008 ).

By the early 1970s, there was a growing cultural sense that requiring people to remain married, or to manufacture evidence in order to get divorced, was neither reasonable nor socially acceptable. To accommodate this cultural shift in attitudes, in 1970, California became the first state to change the statutory laws so that couples could divorce without having to provide evidence that one party was at fault. By 1977 nine states had adopted a no-fault based law; by late 1983 all states except South Dakota and New York had adopted some form of no-fault divorce. As of October 2010 all states and the District of Columbia allowed no-fault divorce. Over the years this shift to a no-fault policy has been hotly debated, and many states allow some form of fault-based grounds for divorce alongside no-fault based grounds ( Adams & Coltrane, 2007 ; Nock et al., 2008 ).

Divorce Rates: Who and How Many?

Divorce rates began to rise in the 1960s, reaching a peak in 1981 at 5.3 per 1,000. Rates of divorce then began to fall, levelling off at 4 per 1,000 in 2000. This rate has remained reasonably stable since that time. Although demographic data concerning marriage and divorce from the 2009 Survey of Income and Program Participation are beginning to appear ( Kreider & Ellis, 2011 ), the most detailed research on these topics comes from data collected during the 1990s ( Sweeney, 2010 ). Marriage and divorce rates vary widely by age and race; however, currently roughly 40 percent of marriages in the United States end in divorce ( Kreider & Ellis, 2011 ). Approximately 69 percent of women and 78 percent of men will remarry ( Kreider & Ellis, 2011 ), and approximately 50 to 60 percent of those who remarry will divorce again at least once ( Ganong, Coleman, & Haas, 2006 ). The average length of first marriages is 8 years, and the average length of time between divorce and remarriage is 4 years ( Kreider &Ellis, 2011 ). Time between remarriage and redivorce is approximately 8 years.

Although important, these statistics do not reflect the rates of nonmarital unions and dissolutions, which are the fastest growing family form in the United States ( Kreider & Ellis, 2011 ). We do know the formation and dissolution of these unions are more fluid, but the actual statistics are illusive because official recordkeeping has not been put in place. A by-product of this shift to nonmarital unions is that a higher proportion of those who do marry are staying married. The latest data indicate that for increasing birth cohort years, the divorce rates fall. For example, for birth cohort years 1965 to 1969, the percentage of ever divorced falls to 18 percent for men and 22 percent for women 35 years old ( Kreider & Ellis, 2011 ).

There are period, demographic, and geographical differences found in the number of divorces ( Teachman, Tedrow & Hall, 2006 ). So far, state laws do not seem to be responsible for this variability ( Ahrons, 1994 ). Instead, the overall economy has a great impact. Divorces increase during period of economic growth and fall in years of declining economy ( Teachman et al., 2006 ). During wartime, divorces decrease; increases are observed when wars end and during times of relative peace ( Ahrons, 1994 ). Religious affiliations are important as well. Divorce is lower among those religions whose doctrines oppose divorce (Catholics and Jews) and more frequent among those whose restrictions are more liberal (Protestants and those of mixed religious affiliations, agnostics, and atheists; Rodrigues, Hall, & Fincham, 2006 ). Divorce is more common among people with no children as opposed to parents. It is also higher in urban than rural areas and higher in early years of marriage as opposed to later years. Generally divorce rates are highest in the West and some areas of the South and the lowest in the Northeast and sections of the Midwest ( Rodrigues et al., 2006 ).

Although statistics reveal that the divorce rates have remained fairly stable for the past 40 years, what is not reflected is that American families are basically changing structure. What is increasing at a phenomenal pace are unmarried partnerships and unmarried partnerships with children that dissolve. Unmarried, separated parents now make up approximately 40 percent of custody and parenting time cases coming before courts in the United States. In the years 1970 to 1999, the number of children in the United States living in two-parent households decreased from 85 percent to 68 percent. In 1999, 23 percent of children lived in a mother-headed household, and 4 percent of children lived in a father-headed household (Barber & Demo, 2006). It is now estimated that by age 13 years, 50 percent of American children reside in a family comprising one biological parent and an intimate partner ( Bullard, Wachlarowicz, DeLeeuw, Snyder, Low, Forgatch, & DeGarmo, 2010 ).

Risk and Resilience for Children and Adults

Moving from the demography of divorce to its psychological correlates, one of the most important, recent trends in the divorce literature involves a shift away from research based on studying pathological outcomes (e.g., What problems do children and adults face following the end of marriage? What is the magnitude of risk for intrapersonal and interpersonal outcomes associated with divorce?) to research examining moderators of adjustment and the factors that promote resilience in the face of marital dissolution. We review these outcomes in detail later in this chapter, but, for now, understanding the history of research on divorce outcomes is important for understanding the entirety of the divorce literature. Amato (2003) described the distributions of psychological well-being among offspring with divorced and continuously married counterparts. A key finding from this work is that, for psychological well-being in adult offspring, there is a 90 percent overlap in distributions from offspring of divorced and continuously married parents ( Amato, 2003 ). The literature in this area has moved, in the past 20 years, from focusing almost exclusively on the 10 percent of offspring who do poorly following divorce to a revised study of well-being in the face of risk ( Amato, 2010 ; Emery, 2004 ; Hetherington & Kelly, 2002 ). These changes reflect, in part, a more general focus on resilience across all of psychological science ( Bonanno, 2004 ).

The major historical debate in the divorce literature revolves around the lasting effects of marital dissolution on children and pits qualitative and quantitative research findings against each other. Beginning in the early 1970s, Judith Wallerstein conducted a series of open-ended interviews with 60 families (131 children) filing for divorce in northern California. Wallerstein’s research, documented most completely in an initial and two follow-up books ( Wallerstein & Blakeslee, 1989 ; Wallerstein & Kelly, 1996 ; Wallerstein, Lewis, & Blakeslee, 2001 ), painted a grim picture for the lives of offspring from divorced families; children of divorced parents were believed to lived troubled lives as young men and women, with up to 50 percent demonstrating significant problems managing their moods or experiencing notable problems related to self-worth ( Wallerstein & Blakeslee, 1989 ). Wallerstein’s 25-year follow-up study suggested that the greatest effects of parental divorce on children are not evident until adulthood when people are faced with making important choices about romantic relationships. Not surprisingly, the suggestion that parental divorce in childhood exerts a major (and lasting) negative impact on who and how we choose to love as adults captured national attention and reified long-standing notions, based largely on Wallerstein’s earlier findings, that divorce is unequivocally bad for children.

Around the time Wallerstein and colleagues published results from her 25-year follow-up study, quantitative research was beginning to reveal a different pattern of outcomes for both children and adults following divorce. Two conclusions are noteworthy. First, most research on children of divorce supported what Amato (2003) has a called a “moderate version” of Wallerstein’s position; that is, on average, children of divorce tend to fare worse in important domains of functioning (reviewed in detail below) than children from continuously married families; the effect sizes of these differences, however, tend to be relatively small. Second, despite risk for poor outcomes, both children and adults tend to do well over time—that is, people are resilient in the face of divorce. Hetherington and Kelly (2002) noted that empirical research demonstrates that nearly 75 percent of children from divorce report a high level of psychological adjustment in adulthood. Emery (2004) echoed these conclusions by noting that, “Even though divorce increases the risk of psychological, academic and social problems for children, the vast majority of children whose parents divorce are functioning with the same level of competency as children whose parents are married ” (pp. 66, italics in original source). More recently, Amato (2010) concluded:

A reasonable assumption is that divorce can have varied consequences, with some children showing improvements in well-being, other children showing little or no change, some children showing decrements that gradually improve, and yet other children developing problems that persist well into adulthood….These considerations suggest that researchers should focus less attention on mean differences between children with divorced and continuously married parents and more attention on the factors that produce variability in children’s adjustment following divorce. (pp. 658)

Thus, in the time since 1971, when Wallerstein began her systematic studies of divorcing families in California, the field has moved largely away from debates about the magnitude of effects to studying mechanisms of action and the moderating variables that potentiate or attenuate risk.

Reconciling Risk and Resilience: Psychological Pain and the Divorce–Stress–Adjustment Model

As noted above, a major advance in the literature on child and adolescent outcomes following divorce was the discovery that relatively few children experience lasting problematic behavior disorders as a result of their parents’ divorce (see Amato, 2010 ). In thinking about child outcomes that can follow divorce, Laumann-Billings and Emery (2000) distinguished between disorder and distress, with the former being clinically significant psychopathology and the latter being lasting feelings of pain, regret, or inner turmoil regarding the loss of an idealized nuclear family. These authors found that whereas college-aged participants who experienced childhood divorce evidenced no differences in internalizing and externalizing symptoms compared with participants from intact families, significant differences emerged in subclinical distress, which the authors described as indicators of psychological pain ( Laumann-Billings & Emery, 2000 ). Distress does not cause functional impairment, but lasting feelings of pain or regret can guide life choices and shape how people think about relationships.

Another important development in the literature on divorce is Amato’s (2000) divorce–stress–adjustment model, which describes uncoupling as a developmental process for children and parents that can set into motion a series of life stressors that present adjustment challenges. Depending on people’s resources and the amount of stress and strain instantiated by the separation (e.g., at the parental level, is there ongoing conflict? and at the child level, is there a loss of contact with one parent?), different predictions can me made about child and adult outcomes. A key element of the model is that positive or negative outcomes are contingent on individual and family resources, as well as the short-term outcomes (e.g., the loss of custody or major changes in financial well-being). In this framework, the effects of short-term changes can be potentiated by the degree of chronic stress on a divorcing family. For example, the mental health of single mothers may depend heavily on the degree to which there is active co-parenting conflict with an ex-partner (see Sbarra & Emery, 2008 ). From this perspective, the divorce–stress–adjustment model is a useful framework for making specific predictions about who will navigate the end of marriage with only transient distress and who will succumb to ongoing distress as a result of accumulated stressors.

Predictors of Divorce

Most marriages begin happily and are characterized by a great deal of optimism. Baker and Emery (1993) conducted a study to reveal just how optimistic people are about their marriage. One hundred thirty-seven adults who had recently filed for a first marriage license were surveyed about their knowledge of the general divorce rate and their estimate of the likelihood that their own marriage would end in divorce. In terms of the general divorce rate, participants accurately reported that 50 percent of marriages (in the early 1990s) would end in divorce, but the median response was 0 percent when assessing the likelihood that they personally would divorce ( Baker & Emery, 1993 ). This finding illustrates a foundational point: The transition from an optimistic beginning to teetering on the brink of divorce is a developmental process that unfolds over time ( Bradbury, 1998 ). Gottman (1994) referred to this process as the cascade model of marital dissolution. In this section of the chapter, we detail three of the major approaches to understanding the cascade toward divorce. It is important to recognize that the deterioration of marital quality occurs at multiple levels, including psychological processes within individuals, interactions between partners, and contextual demands and stressors that affect both between- and within-person dynamics. Research on the predictors of divorce is a large and active area of study; below, we outline some of the major findings in this area.

Intrapersonal Processes: Personality

Low positive emotion, high negative emotion, and low constraint are reliable predictors of divorce ( Kelly & Conley, 1987 ). One striking example of the way temperamental characteristics may increase risk for future divorce comes from a study by Caspi (1987) who followed children from the Berkeley Guidance Study into and through midlife. Children who evidenced explosive, uncontrollable temper tantrums were more than twice as likely to divorce later in life compared with children who did not display these angry outbursts. Another interesting example of work on this topic suggests that low positive emotion—indexed by smile intensity in yearbook photos—predicted subsequent divorce in later life ( Hertenstein, Hansel, Butts, & Hile, 2009 ). The authors suggested that the yearbook photos, which are extremely thin slices of behavior (literally, “snapshots of affect experience” in early life), reflected participants’ stable temperamental tendencies ( Hertenstein et al., 2009 ). Other research suggests that personality disorders (PDs) play a large role in the prediction of divorce. Using data from the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions, Whisman and colleagues ( Whisman, Tolejko, & Chatav, 2007 ) found that compared with people without a diagnosed PD, those with paranoid, schizoid, antisocial, histrionic, avoidant, dependent, or obsessive-compulsive PDs were at substantially elevated risk to be divorced. Overall, research in this area suggests that variability in both the normal and dysfunctional domains of personality increase risk for divorce; later in this section we consider some of the interpersonal explanations for why this might be so.

The association between personality and divorce should be considered in light of the known genetic influences on marital instability. McGue and Lykken (1992) found greater concordance of divorce in monozygotic than dyzygotic twins, indicating that a substantial portion of the risk for marital dissolution can be explained by genetic factors (also see Jerskey et al., 2010 ). A follow-up study demonstrated that between 30 percent (in women) and 42 percent (in men) of heritable divorce risk was attributable to personality differences ( Jocklin, McGue, & Lykken, 1996 ), and other work shows that the genetic association with controllable life events, of which divorce is one, is entirely explained by differences in personality ( Saudino, Pedersen, Lichtenstein, McClearn, & Plomin, 1997 ).

Intrapersonal Processes: Parental Divorce History

As noted above, divorce is a heritable outcome, but the heritability of divorce is not 100 percent, indicating that environmental events play a large role in the dissolution of marriage. The intergenerational transmission of divorce can occur for both genetic and environmental reasons, but it is clear that individuals whose parents divorced are at substantial risk for seeing their own marriages end in divorce (e.g., Pryor & Rodgers, 2001 ). In a prospective empirical study focused on the environmental contributors to the intergenerational transmission of divorce, Amato and DeBoer (2001) demonstrated that parental divorce increased the risk of divorce in their offspring by nearly 50 percent. Interestingly, these authors found that the greatest risk for divorce in the second generation was observed among offspring whose parents reported low levels of discord prior to the divorce. Divorce in the second generation was better explained by a lack of commitment to marriage than by impaired relationship skills (which may be learned as a consequence of observing your parents’ behaviors leading up to and after the divorce). Other studies have investigated the possibility that father absence or large changes in socioeconomic status explain the intergenerational transmission effect, but neither of these explanations has much empirical support (see Lyngstad & Jalovaara, 2010 ).

More recently, D’Nofrio and colleagues ( D’Onofrio et al., 2007 ) used a children of twins (CoT) design (discussed more completely later in the chapter) to disentangle the genetic and environmental contributions to the intergenerational transmission of divorce. In a study of more than 2,300 adult offspring of twins, the authors found that 66 percent of the variability in risk for divorce among the offspring was accounted for directly by environmental experiences. This finding is consistent with a social causation explanation (i.e., divorce among adults operates through environmental processes to increase risk for subsequent divorce among adult offspring), whereas the remaining 34 percent of risk was due to genetic selection effects ( D’Nofrio et al., 2007 ). An important implication of this finding is that intervention efforts designed to reduce the stress and strain of marital dissolution among parents may also act to decrease the risk for subsequent divorce by children. This idea has yet to be tested empirically, but the approach represents an important route for determining precisely how parental divorce history may increase risk for later divorce in the next generation.

Intrapersonal Processes: Gender

There exists reliable evidence that men and women end marriage for different reasons. In reviewing literature on gender differences in the prediction of divorce, Amato and Rogers (1997) wrote:

…women often cite the husband’s use of authority, his cruelty, drinking habits, immaturity untrustworthiness, infidelity, poor money management, values, and lifestyle as causes of divorce. Although husbands often cite their wife’s infidelity as the cause of divorce, they also refer to their own drinking, drug use, as well as external causes such as family death, work commitments, and problems with in-laws. (p. 615)

In their prospective study of more than 1,500 adults, Amato and Rogers (1997) shed additional light on these differences by noting that women report more marital problems than men, largely because husbands were unlikely to report on wives’ experiences of marital distress; said differently, wives tended to monitor the emotional “pulse” of the marriage much more than husband, and this often leads to husbands underestimating the extent of problems in a marriage. Marital problems, in turn, were strong prospective predictors of divorce. Thus, women, relative to men, appear more sensitive to the variations in marital quality that predict the future likelihood of divorce.

In a more process-oriented investigation of the variables that predict divorce among couples, Gottman, Coan, Carrere, and Swanson (1998) studied a group of 130 couples over a 6-year period in a marital interaction paradigm that included behavioral coding of emotional expression as well as detailed assessments of physiological functioning during marital interaction tasks. The results revealed a specific patterning of interaction that predicted the future likelihood of divorce. Specifically, the highest probability of divorce was observed among couples in which wives demonstrated negative start-up behaviors (e.g., quickly accusing their husbands of wrongdoing in the marital interaction); in which husbands refused to accept influence from their wives; in which wives reciprocated low-intensity negative affect; and in which husbands failed to deescalate this low-intensity negativity ( Gottman et al., 1998 ).

These results are consistent with other gender differences that were first described by Gottman and Levenson (1988) , who proposed that the associations between affect and physiology may be more closely bound for men than for women. Indeed, Levenson, Carstensen, and Gottman (1994) found that during marital conversations husbands, but not wives, evidenced significant correlations between physiological arousal and negative affect. The authors suggested that this finding provides one explanation for the often-observed wife demand/husband withdraw pattern of marital interaction ( Christensen & Heavey, 1990 ), which is predictive of prospective declines in marital quality. In this dynamic, the demander pressures or criticizes his or her partner, which results in the withdrawer retreating through passive inaction or defensiveness. Levenson et al. (1994) proposed that one reason husbands may withdraw much more than wives is that when they engage in strong emotions, they often do so in the context of a high degree of physiological arousal, which is believed to impede effective communication during times of marital conflict.

Intrapersonal Processes: Attributions

The social-cognitive model of marital distress emphasizes the interpretations and evaluations that people make of their own and their partner’s behavior ( Karney & Bradbury, 1995 ). Compared with people who are satisfied with their relationship, dissatisfied partners are more likely to attribute each other’s negative behavior to broad and stable traits, and are more likely to view negative partner behavior as selfishly motivated and worthy of blame ( Bradbury & Fincham, 1990 ). Dissatisfied partners are also more likely to hold dysfunctional, extreme, or unreasonable assumptions (i.e., beliefs about how things are), standards (i.e., beliefs about how things should be), and expectations (i.e., beliefs about how things will be) with respect to oneself, one’s partner, and one’s relationship ( Baucom, Epstein, Sayers, & Sher, 1989 ). Buehlman, Gottman, and Katz (1992) combined data from a semi-structured oral (marital) history interview with a laboratory-based physiology task to study predictors of divorce among fifty-six couples. These authors found that husbands’ expressed disappointment in the marriage during the oral history interview was highly correlated with the future likelihood of divorce ( r = .68) ( Buehlman et al., 1992 ). This finding was interpreted in light of the larger constellation of marital problems: Wives of husbands who expressed disappointment also expressed greater marital unhappiness during the interview and evidenced greater contempt and anger, as well as a faster heart rate, during the marital interaction. Negative attributions about one’s partner play a critical role as kindling for arguments and disagreements that spur couples further in the cascade toward divorce ( Gottman, 1994 ).

Interpersonal Processes: Patterns of Interaction

The interaction patterns that are associated with high risk for divorce are well characterized ( Gottman & Levenson, 2000 ). Gottman (1994) described four interactional patterns (criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling) as highly predictive of divorce. He also outlined a marital balance theory and demonstrated that during marital interaction tasks, couples who remained married used as many as 5:1 instances of positive to negative affect (whereas the ratio was much closer to 1:1 in married couples who subsequently divorced). Markman and colleagues ( Markman, Rhoades, Stanley, Ragan, & Whitton, 2010 ) found that the precursors of decreases in marital satisfaction could be observed even before couples became married; in a sample of 210 couples, couples who evidenced a decrease in negative communication patterns were most likely to remain married over the first 5 years of marriage, and the authors interpreted these data as indicating that stable couples learn positive ways of handling negative communication in the early years of marriage ( Markman et al., 2010 ).

Contextual Variables

In addition to these intrapersonal and interpersonal processes, the past 10 years have witnessed a surge of research dedicated to understanding how life circumstances are associated with relational quality ( Bodenmann, 2005 ; Story & Bradbury, 2004 ; Story & Repetti, 2006 ). It is well established that financial hardship and daily stress increase risk for divorce ( Lavee, McCubbin, & Olson, 1987 ), and a major focus of the research in this area is to understand how external forces are associated with decays in marital quality and increases in the risk for divorce. Important distinctions in this area include whether the stressors are chronic (e.g., job loss) or acute (e.g., a heavy workload), and whether individuals and couples can adjust to these demands ( Story & Bradbury, 2004 ).

When external stressors decay relationship quality, how do these spillover processes operate? Neff and Karney ( Neff & Karney, 2004 ; see also Chapter 30 , this volume) assessed eighty-two newlywed couples every 6 months for the first 4 years of marriage and found that wives who experienced the highest levels of stress spillover demonstrated the greatest declines in marital satisfaction over the study period. Importantly, as reported stress levels increased, wives reported a corresponding increase in the perceptions of specific relationship problems, and these negative cognitions mediated the association between stress and relationship quality. Neff and Karney (2004) noted, “Stress may lead to lower satisfaction by hindering spouses’ ability to separate negative specific relationship perceptions from their global relationship satisfaction” (p. 145). Story and Repetti ( Story & Repetti, 2006 ) provided a conceptual replication of the spillover effect, demonstrating that negative mood mediated the association between wives’ daily workload and marital anger. Building on this research, Neff and Karney ( Neff & Karney, 2007 ) provided another replication of the spillover effect and also found evidence for a dyadic crossover effect, whereby husbands reported lower satisfaction when their wives experienced higher stress. This latter finding demonstrates that mediating processes linking contextual variables and relationship quality must be consider in terms of moderating processes that include different effects for husbands and wives.

One of the most well studied contextual factors impacting marital satisfaction is the transition to parenthood, especially for couples having their first child ( Cowan & Cowan, 2000 ). Cowan and Cowan (1995) reported that following the birth of a first child, about 15 percent of men and women move from above to below the clinical cut-off for marital distress on standard self-report assessment instruments. A meta-analysis of the studies on parenthood and marital satisfaction found that parents report lower marital satisfaction compared with nonparents and that marital satisfaction was negatively correlated with the number of children ( Twenge, Campbell, & Foster, 2003 ). However, the effect sizes obtained from the meta-analysis were small in magnitude and were moderated by individual differences: the effect of parenthood on marital satisfaction was stronger for younger couples and people from higher socioeconomic groups. Recent evidence suggests that these declines are more pronounced in couples who are highly satisfied with the first 6 months of marriage relative to less satisfied couples ( Lawrence, Rothman, Cobb, Rothman, & Bradbury, 2008 ).

Child Outcomes

For decades, the effects of divorce on children and adolescents have been the subject of intense research and policy debate. As noted above, researchers generally relied on a deficit family model assuming that family structure deviations from the ideal heterosexual, biological, always-married two-parent status would produce a number of problems for children and adolescent ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ). Dimensions of adjustment studied include psychopathology (externalizing and internalizing disorders), academic achievement, and interpersonal relationships (romantic, social, and parental).

Psychopathology (Internalizing and Externalizing Behaviors)

As mentioned briefly above, the earliest findings about children’s well-being following divorce come from the influential study conducting by Wallerstein and colleagues ( Wallerstein & Kelly, 1980 ; Wallerstein & Blakeslee, 1989 ; Wallerstein, Lewis, & Blakeslee, 2001 ), who used semi-structured interviews of both parents and children with a nonrandom sample of parents who were seeking treatment. The families were followed-up at 18 months, 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, and 25 years ( Wallerstein et al., 2001 ). Entering the study, a large proportion of the parents had serious psychological problems ( Wallerstein & Kelly, 1980 ). The main finding from this study was that divorce is devastating and negatively affects the mental health, academics, and social relationships in most children both short and long term ( Lansford, 2009 ; Marquardt, 2006 ; Wallerstein et al., 2001 ). In this view, most children from divorced parents become psychologically disturbed adults. These adults go on to form unstable, unsatisfying intimate relationships that often end in divorce ( Amato, 2003 ; Wallerstein et al., 2000). Regardless of the problems with the research (discussed above), the Wallerstein findings are used by advocates to promote social policies to further restrict divorce and to socially ostracize parents who choose this option ( Popenoe, 2009 ). Beyond the findings from this single study, other investigations have provided evidence that divorce is associated with an increased risk for psychopathology. Depression, also referred to as internalizing problems, has been found to be higher in children and adolescents in divorced versus always-married families ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ). Depression also tends to be higher in girls as opposed to boys from divorced families ( Emery, 1999 ). In comparison, boys as opposed to girls from divorced families engage in more externalizing behaviors (aggressive, noncompliant, and socially deviant behaviors). Boys also exhibit higher levels of substance use and delinquency ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ). These findings are consistent across a number of studies.

Academic Outcomes

One of the major topics studied with respect to child outcomes following divorce is academic achievement. Parental divorce is associated with lower cognitive and academic performance and with increases in high school and college dropouts ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ; Hetherington, 1993 ). A 2001 meta-analysis investigating a decade of studies found the standardized (effect size) difference in academic achievement between children from divorced versus always-married parents to be 0.16. Using a longitudinal data set from a nationally representative sample, researchers found that differences in academic achievement could be nearly entirely accounted for by family functioning before divorce ( Lansford, 2009 ; Sun & Li, 2001 ).

Relationships

Romantic relationships are also the focus of research on differences between children from divorced versus always-married families. Several studies investigating the intergenerational transmission of divorce noted above indicate that a parental divorce doubles the risk of divorce in the second generation ( Amato & DeBoer, 2001 ; Lansford, 2009 ). This risk is even higher if both spouses have parents who divorced ( Hetherington & Elmore, 2004 ; Lansford, 2009 ). The reasons for this difference are hypothesized to be lack of a strong commitment to marriage and poor role models for stability of relationships, compromise, and negotiation skills. In some studies the risk associated with a parental divorce is higher for women than men. One of the reasons for this increased risk is that women are traditionally the partners who monitor the emotional tenor of the relationship. If women do not have the interpersonal skills necessary to effectively communicate and stabilize the marriage, the relationship will fail. Mediators of the intergenerational transmission of divorce have been investigated and deficits in interpersonal skills (e.g., problems with anger, jealousy, hurt feelings, communication, infidelity) were found among those from divorced families, making it difficult to maintain stable intimate relationships ( Amato, 1996 ).

Considering relationships with parents, approximately 25 percent of adolescents in divorced families, compared with 10 percent in always-married families, become disengaged from their families, spend little time at home, and avoid activities, communication, and interactions with their families ( Hetherington, 1993 ; Hetherington & Stanley-Hagan, 1999 ). Disengagement can be a healthy solution to family engaged in high conflict, provided there is a caring adult from outside the immediate family (aunt or uncle, grandparent, neighbor, teacher) who remains engaged with the adolescent ( Hetherington & Stanley-Hagan, 1999 ). Disengagement can also be due to lack of involvement and monitoring by the parents, which if coupled with association with a delinquent peer group, leads to academic problems and antisocial behaviors (substance abuse, delinquency, teenage sexuality, and childbearing) ( Hetherington & Stanley-Hagan, 1999 ).

Considering adolescent sexual behavior, a number of scholars have found strong evidence for a link between early father absence from the household and early adolescent sexuality ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ). This is particularly true for adolescent girls ( Ellis, Bates, Dodge, Fergusson, Horwood, Pettit, & Woodward, 2003 ). Several researchers have found that girls whose fathers left the household when the girls were very young (before age 5 years) reportedly have the earliest onset of sexual relations ( Donahue, D’Onofrio, Bates, Lansford, Dodge, & Pettit, 2010 ), participate in riskier sexual practices, and have higher rates of teen pregnancy ( Ellis et al., 2003 ). Interestingly, the differences in timing of first sexual relations and teen pregnancy when comparing girls from always-married to divorce family households are significantly reduced or sometimes disappear when control variables are used (including income, parental occupation, affiliation with defiant peers, mothers’ permissive sexual attitudes, inept parenting) ( Barber & Demo, 2006 , Ellis et al., 2003 ).

The relationship that most often suffers the greatest in a divorce is the relationship between children and their father. Across studies, the general conclusion is that there is a substantial reduction in the amount of contact between children and adolescents and their fathers after divorce ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ). As noted above, the lack of contact with adolescent girls has a significant impact on the timing of first sexual relations. If the family remains in high conflict or the father has antisocial characteristics, contact with the father does not appear to be positive for the children. If, on the other hand, the family is able to co-parent in a reasonably healthy manner, contact with the father is very positive for the children. An important aspect of father involvement is the quality of parenting. If the father is able to create an atmosphere of closeness and noncoercive discipline, providing advice and monitoring activities, the result is higher academic achievement and fewer externalizing and internalizing problems among the children ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ).

Meta-analyses on Child Outcomes

Two important meta-analyses were conducted, one in early 1990 ( Amato & Keith, 1991 ) and then its updated version in early 2000 ( Amato, 2001 ), to further summarize findings concerning child and adolescent academic achievement, conduct, psychological adjustment, self-concept, and social relations in divorced families. These two studies confirmed that across decades of research, the differences between children from divorced and always-married families were extremely small. In the 1990 meta-analysis, research from the 1950s through the 1980s found that the median differences between children from divorced and married families was 0.14 of a standard deviation ( Amato & Keith, 1991 ). This study also found that the more methodologically sophisticated studies yielded weaker effect sizes, as did more recent studies. In addition, when researchers used control variables (such as a child’s predivorce functioning or family income in analyses), the effect sizes were lowered.

The second meta-analysis ( Amato, 2001 ) investigated the studies conducted in the 1990s and found an overall difference of 0.24. This overall 0.24 effect size difference represents a range of differences between 0.12 and 0.22. Measures of academic achievement yielded a 0.16 difference; conduct problems 0.22; psychological adjustment 0.21; self-concept 0.12; and social relationships 0.15 ( Amato, 2001 ). In other words, children from divorced families scored approximately one-tenth to one-fifth of a standard deviation below children with always-married parents, across a range of outcomes ( Amato, 2003 ). To complicate matters, there are potential moderators that could affect adjustment not considered in these two meta-analyses, which may further attenuate the small differences found. Essentially, cross-sectional research cannot account for two important moderators: (1) predivorce individual and family functioning, and (2) number of transitions in family composition, family relationships, and resources in the short and long term ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ).

Moderators of Child Outcomes: Multiple Transitions

Experiences with multiple parenting transitions, changes in family living conditions, and changes in family resources are a consistent moderator of predivorce and postdivorce adjustment ( Ahrons, 2004 ; Amato, 2003 ; Hetherington & Kelly, 2002 ). Children live in a diverse set of ever-changing family living arrangements after separation that do not necessarily constitute a traditional mother- or father-headed, single-family household ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ). Those family forms include a parent cohabitating with another single adult or a series of adults, a parent cohabiting or marrying into a stepfamily or serial stepfamilies, and children moving into and out of households headed by grandparents or other relatives ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ). Amato (2003) found a direct relationship between the number of family transitions, defined as parental remarriages, and reductions in levels of psychological well-being of offspring. Children experiencing zero transitions (always-married families) and one transition (a divorce but neither parent remarries) had equal levels of psychological well-being. As the number of transitions increased, the offspring’s well-being declined. Children in multiple-transition families are thrust into and then back out of relationships with adults, new stepsiblings, grandparents, and extended families. As these relationships dissolve, the culture does not have good role models for whether or how to remain in contact.

Moderators of Child Outcomes: Parental Discord

Divorce is a dynamic process that unfolds across the life course of both adults and children. Careful longitudinal research has documented that marital disruption per se is not the most important factor leading to psychological problems for children and adolescents. In other words, family structure is not the determining factor, but family process can be extremely detrimental. Whether families remain married or divorce, high levels of family discord are consistently found to relate to negative outcomes for children ( Amato, 2003 ; Hetherington & Kelly, 2002 ).

Across studies, parental conflict has been associated with both internalizing (anxiety, withdrawal, low self-esteem, and depression) and externalizing problems (aggression and conduct problems), poor academic performance, and problems with peers ( Barber & Demo, 2006 ). If a divorce reduces the parental conflict, a divorce is actually better for children than if the parents remain married ( Morrison & Coiro, 1999 ). Divorce, however, does not always reduce parental conflict. Several longitudinal studies find that for most families, the first 2 years after divorce are particularly difficult ( Ahrons, 2004 ; Hetherington & Kelly, 2002 ), although for a group of parents, the conflict continues beyond the initial 2-year period. When it does, it is particularly detrimental for children.

Are Child and Adolescent Outcomes a Causal Consequence of Parent Divorce?

A major advance in family psychology is the application of genetically informed research designs that help researchers disentangle the potential genetic and environmental effects of parental divorce on child outcomes ( D’Onofrio et al., 2003 ). A long-standing assumption in family psychology is that the often-observed negative outcomes of divorce are causal consequences of the separation experience. However, a competing perspective is that third variables (e.g., low socioeconomic standing) may lead to both divorce and poor outcomes ( Emery, Waldron, Kitzmann, & Aaron, 1999 ; Peris & Emery, 2004 ) or that the underlying genetically liability for divorce ( McGue & Lykken, 1992 ) can be passed on to offspring through passive gene–environment correlations (see D’Nofrio et al., 2003 ). The processes, often referred to as social selection , pose a serious problem for making causal attributions from correlational research. Adoption studies provide an excellent means of separating nature and nurture. Using this method, O’Connor and colleagues ( O’Connor, Caspi, DeFries, & Plomin, 2000 ) found that divorce among adoptive parents was associated with increased rates of behavior problems and substance use in children but showed no differences (relative to adoptees whose parents did not separate) in terms of school achievement and social competence; this finding suggests that the latter two effects, which are often observed in uncontrolled correlational research ( Amato & Keith, 1991 ), may be due to passive gene–environment correlations.

More recently, investigators have started using a CoT design to disentangle causation and selection processes following parental divorce. In this design, the concordance rates of outcomes among the children of monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ) twins are compared when the twins are discordance for divorce (e.g., rates of behavioral problems in children from divorced families are compared with those of their cousins in intact households). Because offspring of MZ twins share the same genetic relationship with their parent and their parent’s twin (i.e., their aunt or uncle), comparison of concordance rates among cousins of discordant MZ twins provides an estimate of a potential environment effect that is free of genetic confounds. For example, if the effect of divorce on children’s increased risk for substance abuse is explained by hostility, the passive correlation between hostility and child outcomes is controlled because cousins share the same genetic association with their aunt or uncle as they do with their parent (i.e., their aunt or uncle’s identical twin).

The CoT design has led to a number of important findings in this area: (1) Parental divorce appears to play a causal role in young adults’ drug and alcohol use, internalizing, and externalizing symptoms ( D’Onofrio et al., 2005 ), although the effect on internalizing symptoms was explained by passive genetic liability (selection) in another study; (2) parental divorce is associated with earlier initiation of sexual intercourse, and a greater probability of educational problems, depressed mood, and suicidal ideation, although increased risk for cohabitation and earlier initiation of drug use is explained by selection factors ( D’Onofrio et al., 2006 ); and (3) the association between parents’ marital conflict (a key element of outcomes in divorcing families) and children’s conduct problems is explained by passive gene–environment correlations in which the children’s outcomes are explained by the same genetic liabilities contributing to parents’ conflict ( Harden et al., 2007 ). The emerging literature using the CoT design is far from clear (e.g., one report indicates internalizing problems in children are a causal consequence of divorce, another paper suggest the effect is due to selection processes), but the method holds tremendous promise for developing a more precise account of the effects of divorce on children (see Amato, 2010 ).

Adult Outcomes

There is a large literature linking the experience of divorce with increased mental health problems in adults, and research is clear in documenting that the experience of marital separation or divorce can have a negative impact on adults’ parenting skills (see Hetherington, Bridges, & Insabella, 1998 ; Lansford, 2009 ). In this respect, it is nearly impossible to separate adult and child outcomes following divorce; parental well-being is inextricably linked to child and adolescent outcomes, but for the purposes of this chapter, we consider changes in parenting as an indicator of adults’ responses to separation.

In her review of the mechanisms linking divorce to child outcomes, Lansford (2009) notes that parenting practices can be disrupted in a variety of ways following divorce, including decreased effectiveness in monitoring and supervising children, problems with consistent discipline, and decreases in warmth and affection. Work in this area first emerged in the early 1980s, and Hetherington, Cox, and Cox (1982) reported that up to 1 year after divorce, custodial mothers showed less affection to their children, greater use of inconsistent discipline, and harsher punishments compared with mothers from nondivorced families. It is important to recognize that differences in parenting practices observed in divorced and married families are not necessarily a consequence of the marital separation process. In a large prospective study, for example, Amato and Booth (1996) found that parents who would subsequently divorce reported significant problems in their relationships with their children as early as 8 to 12 years before the separation. It is notable that this study also found that divorce was associated with additional decreases in affection between fathers and their children, but not mothers and their children ( Amato & Booth, 1996 ). Although disentangling whether decrements in parenting skills predate or follow divorce is complicated, it is clear that interventions designed to improve parenting following divorce do have a positive effect on child and adolescent outcomes, and we describe this work later in the chapter.

Adults’ Mental Health Outcomes

A great deal of research focuses on adults’ psychological functioning following separation and divorce experiences. Data on this topic come from many different fields, including epidemiology, psychology, and sociology. For example, using data from the US National Comorbidity Study ( N = 1,534), Afifi, Cox, and Enns (2006) recently found that compared with never-married and married mothers, separated or divorced mothers evidenced significantly higher rates of clinically significant major depression and generalized anxiety disorders after controlling for household income, education, ethnicity, age, and number of children. In a prospective panel study of more than 30,000 German adults, Lucas (2005) demonstrated that adults’ life satisfaction dropped precipitously in their years before a divorce and, on average, did not recover to predivorce levels up to 6 years after the divorce. Similarly, in a four-wave panel study spanning 12 years, Johnson and Wu (2002) found that divorce was associated with increased rates of psychological distress after accounting for levels of predivorce distress. Wade and Pevalin (2004) replicated these findings in a sample of more than 10,000 adults from the British Household Panel Survey that spanned 9 years. Specifically, this study found evidence that (1) adults who have mental health problems are more likely to be selected out of marriage in each successive wave of the study, and (2) after accounting for these selection processes, the experience of divorce was associated with a significant short-term, but not long-term, increase in mental health problems.

The findings described above illustrate what is the most important, and perhaps the most vexing, question in the literature on adults and divorce: Are the mental health correlates of divorce explained by problems that predate the separation or are they a causal consequence of the stress and strain conferred by the end of a marriage? These processes are typically described as the social selection and the social causation explanations for the association between divorce and mental health ( Amato, 2010 ), and there exists reasonable evidence for both processes. Social selection process may operate in two primary ways: (1) Mental health problems and psychopathology increase risk for divorce (e.g., Kessler, Walters, & Forthofer, 1998 ), and/or (2) the outcomes of divorce are better explained by marital processes (e.g., large decreases in marital quality) that predate the separation (e.g., Overbeek et al., 2006 ). Using data from more than 4,500 adults in The Netherlands Mental Health Survey and Incidence Study, for example, Overbeek and colleagues (2006) found that the association between DSM-III-R diagnosed dysthymic disorder and divorce was entirely eliminated when accounting for marital discord that preceded the actual divorce. In this study, the association between divorce and substance abuse problems was not accounted for by marital quality, suggesting that both the marital process and the divorce itself may increase risk for poor outcomes depending on the outcomes in question ( Overbeek et al., 2006 ). The general, working consensus in the literature is that although selection effects are operating, they cannot account for the entirety of the association between the experience of marital separation/divorce and increased risk for poor mental health problems, including diagnosable psychopathology and decrements in psychological well-being or life satisfaction.

The strongest evidence that divorce exerts a causal effect on consequent mood disturbances comes from co-twin control designs. Because MZ twins are genetically identical, differences in mental health outcomes between twins who are discordant for life-event exposures are presumed causal. In a large study of middle-aged Danish twins, Osler, McGue, Lund, and Christensen (2008) found significantly higher rates of depression among both male and female MZ twins who experienced divorce or widowhood, leading to the conclusion that the end of marriage exerts a causal effect of mood symptom severity (independent of the way mood symptoms may predict the end of marriage). Of course, divorce and widowhood are different life events, and additional co-twin studies are needed to determine whether these events exert equally causal effects.

In considering the overall question of divorce and psychological outcomes, an interesting methodological issue concerns how the studies described above quantify their effects. Almost all of the research in the area of divorce and psychological outcomes uses average scores (i.e., mean summary statistics) as the outcomes of interests. In some cases, outcomes are described as the average rates of diagnosable psychopathology among divorced (versus married) people, and in other cases psychological outcomes are reported as mean trajectories across time (e.g., see Lucas, 2005 , for a description of mean changes in life satisfaction). Mancini, Bonanno, and Clark (2011) have recently suggested that average summary statistics obscure important within-sample variability in outcomes. Importantly, the authors note that because grand mean values are sensitive to the undue influence of outliers (i.e., the arithmetic average can be negatively skewed when a small number of people do particularly poorly following a stressful event), the effects of “loss events,” like widowhood and divorce, may appear worse than they actually are, and most people cope quite well over time. Using the same German panel data as Lucas (2005) , the authors conducted a series of latent class growth mixture models and demonstrated that 71.8 percent of participants could be classified as experiencing no change in subjective well-being before or following divorce, 9.1 percent of participants could be classified as experiencing considerable improvement in well-being scores following divorce, and 19.1 percent could be classified as experiencing moderate decreases in well-being following divorce (Mancini et al., in press). These results bolster the idea that resilience is the norm and not the exception following marital dissolution, and that it is possible that mean level summary statistics obfuscate the fact that nearly 80 percent of divorced adults do well in time.

Accounting for this variability in divorce outcomes is an important research task. One possibility is that the association between divorce and later emotional distress depends on the quality of the marriage before the loss. Amato and Hohmann-Marriott (2007) found that adults in high-conflict marriages reported an increase in life happiness following divorce, whereas adults in low-conflict marriages reported a decrease. An interesting feature of this study is that the authors were able to identify and find marriages that were characterized by moderate levels of happiness and low levels of conflict even in the years immediately before the divorce ( Amato & Hohmann-Marriott, 2007 ). Similarly, in the bereavement literature, positive psychological adjustment to widowhood is associated with lower levels of dependence on a spouse before his or her death, whereas greater distress is observed among widows who reported a high degree of marital closeness before the loss (Carr et al., 2000). Findings of this nature also are observed in the literature on children of divorce. Amato (2010) noted that predivorce levels of marital discord condition the probability of poor outcomes; following divorce in high-conflict families, children tend to show little change in well-being, whereas the end of low-conflict marriages is associated with decreases in well-being and increases in distress (e.g., Strohschein, 2005 )

Finally, one of the primary weaknesses of the literature on divorce and adult mental health outcomes is that few studies have focused on the mechanisms, or psychological processes, that connect the end of marriage and subsequent emotional distress. High-quality, processes-focused research in this area is almost absent. This lack of empirical research on mechanisms is surprising, given observations that divorce can induce shame, longing, loneliness, humiliation, rumination, identity disruptions, and prolonged anger or grief ( Emery, 1994 ; Weiss, 1975 ). Presumably, it is these emotional experiences that give rise to, or at least covary with, more severe forms of psychopathology. Using a dyadic model, Sbarra and Emery (2008) recently showed that fathers’ rates of co-parenting conflict following child custody dispute settlements depended on mothers’ rates of acceptance of the relationship termination. Specifically, fathers who reported the greatest levels of conflict were previously married to mothers who reported the greatest acceptance of the separation, and the authors interpreted this finding to suggest that prolonged co-parenting conflict (among fathers) following divorce might operate as an attempt to promote a reunion with an ex-partner who is no longer invested in the relationship. In a prospective analysis over 12 years, Sbarra and Emery (2005) also reported that mothers who continued to show regrets about the separation experience (i.e., low levels of acceptance) also reported the highest rates of depression. In the context of a divorce mediation study, these effects were interpreted to suggest that a potentially adverse effect of helping parents cooperatively renegotiate their separation relationship may be to prolong feelings of grief. Although these studies provide some insight into the correlates of better and worse adjustment to divorce, we still have a great deal to learn about both the mechanisms of recovery (i.e., variables associated with changes in psychological adjustment) and the variables that explain the association between marital status and mental health outcomes.

Adults’ Physical Health Outcomes

The literature on the physical health outcomes following divorce is less well developed than the literature on mental health outcomes, but work in this area is growing rapidly ( Sbarra, 2012 ; Sbarra, Law, & Portley, 2011 ). The rationale for much of the work in this area is that because divorce is an acute stressor (for many people) with the potential to become a chronic stressor (for some people), studying the processes associated with marital separation serves as an important model for studying how stressful life events may be associated with health-relevant biological endpoints. When considering the literature on divorce and health, it makes sense to consider broad-based population-level effects and the mechanisms that can potentially explain these effects. Given space limitations, we discuss the broad population level effects and the role of psychological stress and health outcomes, but we point the reader to other sources for the most current information on the study of marital status and health.

One of the most consistently replicated effects in the social relationships and health literature is the epidemiological finding that marital status is associated with risk for early death. A recent meta-analysis of thirty-two prospective studies (involving more than 6.5 million people, 160,000 deaths, and more than 755,000 divorces in eleven different countries) revealed that, compared with their married counterparts, separated or divorced adults evidenced a significant increase in risk for early death ( Sbarra, Law, & Portley, 2011 ). Divorced or separated adults evidence increased rates of early, all-cause mortality even in the fully adjusted models (that control not only for age but also for a variety of sociodemographic, health, and health behavior covariates). The effect size (an adjusted risk hazard of 1.23, which indicates that, on average, divorced adults are at 23 percent greater likelihood to experience death at each successive follow-up period in any given prospective study than married adults) is consistent with the magnitude of association observed in other large-scale studies, and it is notable that divorced men appear to have the highest death rates among unmarried adults (for a review of evidence from sixteen developed countries, see Hu & Goldman, 1990 ).

The research reviewed above focuses on all-cause mortality, but a more specific literature also focuses on suicide. For example, in a 10-year, prospective epidemiological study of mortality risk in 471,922 noninstitutionalized adults living in the United States, Kposowa (2000) found that men who were separated or divorced at the start of the study were 2.28 times more likely to kill themselves during the follow-up period than their married counterparts, whereas no significant association was found between marital status and suicide for women. In a follow-up analysis, Kposowa (2003) reported that divorced men were more than nine times more likely to kill themselves than were divorced women.

What do we know about the mechanisms linking the end of marriage and risk for poor health outcomes? First, consistent with the discussion above, social selection explains some of the physical health outcomes observed following divorce. In the previous section, we described work by Osler and colleagues (2008) , who used a co-twin control design to investigate rates of health outcomes between twins who were discordant for widowhood or divorce. The results indicated that depression and rates of smoking may follow from the ending of a marriage, but that differences in many other health outcomes (e.g., self-rated health, alcohol use, body mass index [BMI]) may be due to underlying genetic explanations, and not the stress of a relationship transition. In addition, the association between divorce and physical health may be explained by third variables that both increase the risk for divorce and increase the risk for poor health, such as hostility and neuroticism, but the evidence for this hypothesis is relatively scant. Using data from the Terman Life Cycle study, Tucker and colleagues ( Tucker, Friedman, Wingard, & Schwartz, 1996 ) reported that the risk associated with having ever experienced a divorce and early mortality could be reduced (by 21 percent for men and 15 percent for women) after accounting for childhood conscientiousness and a history of parental divorce.

Beyond social selection processes, separation and divorce can instantiate changes in social resources, health behaviors, and psychological stress that have long-term implications for physical health (for a description of each process, see Sbarra et al., 2011 ). Only a handful of studies have examined how the psychological responses to marital separation and divorce may be associated with biomarkers that have health implications. The work in this area began in the 1980s with a series of now seminal studies by Kiecolt-Glaser and colleagues (1987 ; Kiecolt-Glaser, Kennedy, Malkoff, Fisher, & et al., 1988 ). More recently, Sbarra and colleagues ( Sbarra, Law, Lee, & Mason, 2009 ) found that participants who reported greater divorce-related emotional intrusion (e.g., dreaming about the separation, experiencing waves of sudden emotion about the separation) evidenced significantly higher levels of resting systolic and diastolic blood pressure (BP). In addition, during a task in which participants mentally reflected on their separation experience, men who reported that the task required a great deal of emotion regulatory effort (i.e., feeling upset combined with a need to exert control of one’s emotions in order to prevent a worsening of distress) evidenced the largest increases in BP, and these effects were in addition to those observed for baseline functioning.

In summary, marital separation and divorce are associated with a statistically reliable increase in the probability of early death, yet we still know little about the mechanisms that explain this association. Only a few studies have examined emotional responding to divorce and associations with biomarkers that have distinct implications for endpoint health outcomes. Despite the nascent nature of this work, divorce-related subjective emotional experiences are consistently associated with heightened biological stress responses. Future research is needed to see if these emotional responses predict clinically meaningful health outcomes over the long term.

Barriers to Positive Adjustment: Conflict and Partner Abuse

As noted above, high levels of marital discord between parents seriously jeopardizes children’s and adolescents’ healthy development in multiple areas (emotional, social, and academic). Unfortunately, the marital discord and the divorce “high-conflict” couple literatures are not well integrated, particularly in relation to the quality of parenting. High-conflict divorcing parents are those engaged in intractable, ongoing, and unresolved conflict, and rather than diminishing, it intensifies after divorce or separation ( Coates & Fieldstone, 2008 ). Generated by their need to control or punish one another, these couples continue to relitigate minor and inconsequential issues (one-time changes to a parenting plan, telephone access, vacation planning, after school activities, and child hygiene). Parents often jump from one attorney to another, file multiple motions over child-related issues, and also misuse the child welfare system by filing multiple child abuse allegations ( Coates & Fieldstone, 2008 ). Sometimes it is one very troubled parent who drives the high conflict; although, it is presumed that in the vast majority of cases, both parents are actively involved in continuing the conflict ( Coates & Fieldstone, 2008 ). An interesting observation is that intimate partner abuse may be present, but it is not a feature of all high-conflict couples ( Coates & Fieldstone, 2008 ).

Unfortunately, as with the marital discord and high-conflict literatures, the intimate partner abuse (IPA) literature is also not well integrated; therefore, clear definitions of high conflict and the relationship between high conflict and intimate partner abuse are lacking ( Demo & Fine, 2010 ; see also Chapter 20 , this volume). Also lacking is the connection between the intimate partner abuse and parenting. The practical result of these divergent, poorly integrated research literatures is that there is precious little research that bears on the important question of whether a parent who commits intimate partner abuse against a partner can nevertheless be a good parent.

Divorce Interventions: Legal, Psycholegal, and Therapeutic

It is painfully obvious to any professional working with couples in the transition out of marriage that this is a period of financial, legal, and psychological crisis ( Sbarra & Emery, 2005 ). Unfortunately, this crisis occurs at precisely the point in time when important decisions about long-term structure of the family must be made ( Sbarra & Emery, 2005 ). For example, at this time couples must make decisions concerning legal and physical custody of children, parenting time arrangements, division of family assets, and payment of child support and/or spousal maintenance. These decisions then have long-term ramifications for families. Increasingly the process of divorce itself has been implicated as an added stressor for divorcing families.

Within the legal system, one of the main challenges is to process the necessary financial and child-related matters within the legal confines of state statutes without exacerbating existing problems between parents ( Erickson, 2010 ). The legal process is defined as the set of procedures used to obtain a legal divorce. It is a linear process with a set of complicated, rigid rules that unfolds over months to years. To begin the divorce process, one spouse files with the court a set of specific documents detailing why they are requesting a divorce, information about the children (if any), financial assets and liabilities, property (if any) and a detailed plan of how the spouse wishes all these matters to be resolved. The rigid rules detail what documents must be filed, the specific wording to be used, and how and when the documents must be given to the other spouse. The second spouse then has a particular period to submit his or her own set of documents to respond, to question any of the positions in the beginning set of documents, and to put forth an alternative plan. From this point forward, the legal process varies widely depending on whether the spouses agree, whether additional procedures are needed to help the spouses agree (attorney negotiations or mediation), or whether the disputed issues need to be settled by a judge in court at a trial.

Traditional litigation to resolve legal issues also varies widely. In its simplest form couples can negotiate on their own or hire attorneys to negotiate an agreement that addresses financial and child-related issues and file it with the court. Depending on the level of cooperation between the couple and the attorney, if any, the process of negotiation can be lengthy or relatively swift ( Beck & Tanha, 2009 ). At the extreme, couples can be so polarized in their desires and hostile emotionally as to require hours of attorney and other professionals’ time (accountants, appraisers, psychologists or psychiatrists, attorneys for the children), multiple documents filed with the courts, and court appearances to resolve the issues ( Beck & Tanha, 2009 ). This extreme form of traditional two-attorney litigation is seen as formalized competition in which there is a winner and a loser for each issue raised ( Sbarra & Emery, 2005 ). It is inherently competitive, adversarial, and expensive ( Beck & Tanha, 2009 ). For some couples, the competition becomes the focus, rather than what is in the best interests of the children. Unfortunately, little research has focused on this litigation process. The popular perception is that all divorce lawyers are argumentative, are hostile, and refuse to settle for what is fair, thus creating acrimony between their clients and boosting fees. This perception has not been empirically investigated or validated ( Beck & Tanha, 2009 ).

Couples can also opt out of hiring attorneys, and increasingly they are doing so ( Feitz, 2008 ). Some legal scholars argue that the self-represented (pro se) litigant is the single most important issue facing family courts today ( Schepard, 2002 ), and that pro se litigation the second most frequently cited problem by judges and court staff who process divorce cases ( Goerdt, 1992 ). These litigants arrive without knowledge of basic procedural requirements such as statutory time deadlines or understanding of the procedural requirements for conducting court hearings (e.g., subpoenaing witnesses). Evaluating the reliability of evidence and the advantages and disadvantages of various options is probably the most important factor in a divorce case and is the most difficult for pro se litigants ( Snukals & Sturtevant, 2007 ). Unless legally trained, pro se litigants are at a significant disadvantage in this regard. The number of these cases is substantial, though it varies across jurisdictions and types of proceedings. Studies have indicated that the range of family court cases that have at least one pro se client is 55 to 90 percent ( Feitz, 2008 ; McEwen, Rogers, & Maiman, 1995 ). Results from studies of the process indicate that couples with children and personal assets have tremendous difficulties navigating a process designed for legal professionals ( Sales, Beck, & Haan, 1993 ). What has not been investigated are the effects of couples navigating the divorce process on their own in terms of the levels of conflict between parents, types of divorce and parenting agreements developed, or effects (if any) on children in the short or long term.

What is clear is that individual judges have tremendous discretion in deciding divorce-related issues that come before them. This discretion leans to uncertainty in the potential outcomes of cases. In addition, attorneys have particular styles in working with each other and with clients, some more argumentative than others. Judges and attorneys are frustrated with clients attempting the legal divorce process designed for legal professionals. Thus, a level of uncertainty is introduced into the divorce process when couples rely on attorneys and judges to resolve disputed issues or rely on themselves without an adequate understanding of substantive law governing divorce or legal procedures. At a time when couples are emotionally and financially in crisis, many desire clarity from the legal process and are instead faced with uncertainty

Psycholegal Interventions

The contentious, emotionally and financially costly and uncertain nature of the traditional litigation process for resolving disputed divorce issues both before and after divorce has prompted scholars, practitioners, and policy makers to develop and implement less divisive forms of dispute resolution and divorce-specific education programs for couples at these times ( Beck & Sales, 2001 ). The programs remain based in law because most often attendance is legally mandated and important legal issues are addressed; however, the focus of the interventions facilitate discussion of emotionally laden issues and are based in psychological constructs.

Mediation has been advocated for its potential to resolve disputes with less acrimony among disputants, reduce economic costs, and increase satisfaction with divorce agreements ( Beck & Sales, 2001 ). Mediation is a task-oriented, time-limited intervention premised on the theory that disputing parties can negotiate equitable agreements in a confidential, collaborative dispute resolution process with a neutral third party, in a more casual forum than a courtroom ( Beck & Sales, 2001 ).

There has been a steady rise in the popularity of mediation for resolving divorce disputes concerning custody and parenting time. Divorce mediation in some form now exists in nearly every state, or in jurisdictions within each state, in the United States ( Murphy & Rubinson, 2005 ). If a couple is disputing custody or parenting time, then before setting a date for trial, twelve states mandate that the couple attend mediation ( Johnson, Saccuzzo, & Koen, 2005 ). In an additional thirty-three states, judges are given the authority to order (mandate) couples to attend mediation. The remaining states rely on a variety of local court rules that use each of these referral mechanisms ( Johnson, Saccuzzo & Koen., 2005 ). In litigation, spouses can resolve all disputed issues. In some states, all the divorce issues can be mediated (e.g., Alaska, Kansas), whereas others limit it to custody and parenting time issues (e.g., Arizona, Nevada). Paralleling the rise in popularity of mediation, there have been several empirical studies reporting very encouraging findings regarding the success of mediation (see Beck & Sales, 2001 ; Bickerdike & Littlefield, 2000 ; Emery, 1994 ; Emery, Laumann-Billings, Waldron, Sbarra, & Dillon, 2001 ; Emery, Matthews, & Kitzmann, 1994 ; Emery, Matthews, & Wyer, 1991 ; Emery, Sbarra, & Grover, 2005 ; Emery & Wyer, 1987 ; Kelly, 1989 , 1996 ; McIntosh, 2000 ).

Despite mediation’s increasing popularity and encouraging findings, legitimate concerns exist about mandating mediation when IPA is alleged ( Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2011 ). In the context of IPA, concerns about victim and child safety, along with questions about the voluntariness and fairness of the mediation process, are the fulcrum of this debate ( Beck, Walsh & Weston, 2009 ). The proportion of divorcing couples in mediation that report having some type of IPA is high. Depending on the type of IPA assessed (i.e., psychological abuse, physical abuse, coercive control, physical or sexual violence), reported rates of IPA were 59 to 98 percent ( Beck, Walsh, Mechanic, & Taylor, 2010 ; Beck et al., 2009 ; CFCC Research Update, 2010). The IPA in these families also can be extremely serious. In one study, in 41 percent of the cases, there was a restraining order against one of the parties (with 15 percent currently in effect), and 7 percent of the participants did not feel safe at the mediation session (CFCC Research Update, 2010). The idea of a self-representation victim of IPA negotiating long-term legal agreements concerning children in mediation is extremely concerning. Lawyers are not judges and cannot order abusers to agree to terms in agreements that would provide safety for a victim (e.g., supervised parenting time and exchanges of children, restrictions on contact between victim and abuser) ( Beck et al., 2009 ). Unfortunately, at present there are few alternatives for the safe processing of these cases. Victims of IPA and without financial resources have few choices.

Parenting Coordination

For many couples, mediation presents an opportunity to negotiate both predivorce and postdivorce plans. There are, however, a small percentage of couples (8 to 12 percent) ( Coates, Deutsch, Starnes, Sullivan, & Sydlik, 2004 ) for whom mediation does not work. Even if agreements are negotiated, they quickly unravel. It has become clear that there need to be additional programs for these high-conflict families. One option gaining popularity is parenting coordinator programs (PCPs) (e.g., Beck, Putterman, Sbarra, & Mehl, 2008 ). In the early 2000s these programs arose across the United States and Canada driven by the frustration experienced by judges, court personnel, and others working with high-conflict families ( Deutsch, Coates & Fieldstone, 2008 ). Like other court-based programs, PCPs vary considerably in who delivers the intervention, the intervention provided, and the governing legal authority. Broadly, parenting coordinators (PCs) are lawyers and mental health professionals appointed by the courts to perform a quasi-judicial role with the families. The PCs are court-appointed for 1 to 2 years and work with the family to address and resolve a limited scope of parenting conflicts.

The proposed benefit of PCPs is that disputed issues will be resolved much more quickly and without the costly involvement of attorneys and lengthy delays necessary for court hearings. Originally PCPs focused on assisting parents in implementing their parenting plans after the divorce ( Greenberg, 2010 ); however, they now are providing a wider array of services both before and after divorce (parent education, case management, and support) ( Greenberg, 2010 ; Henry et al., 2009 ). Despite widespread implementation of these programs in the court systems across the North America, empirical research into the effects of PC programs is “practically nonexistent” ( Henry et al., 2009 , p. 684), but recent studies have addressed professionals’ points of view about the parenting program ( Beck et al., 2008 ) and the effectiveness of the PCP from the perspectives of clients and the court ( Henry et al., 2009 ). For future clients of these programs and for public policies concerning these programs, it is important to conduct empirically rigorous research (i.e., research using manual treatments control groups, random assignment to conditions, clearly defined goals and outcomes) to determine whether they are effective, and if so, for which clients the PCP was helpful and for which it was not.

Mandatory Informational Divorce Education Programs

Although a small percentage of high-conflict families often require intensive interventions (such as PCPs) to resolve routine parenting issues, there are more general issues all divorcing couples face, particularly in relation to managing interparental conflict and maintaining positive parenting practices. Many court administrators across the United States and Canada recognized divorcing parents were struggling, and Informational Divorce Education Programs (IDEPs) were created as a means to provide targeted education for parents early in the divorce process in the hopes that this education would in turn lessen the detrimental effects of divorce on children ( Pollet & Lombreglia, 2008 ; Sigal, Sandler, Wolchik, & Braver, 2011 ).

The first IDEPs began in 1970s, and they expanded quickly in the 1980s and 1990s. As of 2008, forty-six states had IDEPs, with mandatory attendance for all divorcing couples with children. Couples thus must participate in the program before their case can move forward or for the provision of any other services by the court ( Pollet & Lombreglia, 2008 ). Most IDEPs are short term (i.e., 2 to 4 hours) and are provided by either court-connected services (conciliation courts) or by service providers contracted by the local courts. The content of these programs varies considerably across programs and has continued to evolve.

Three recent reviews of IDEPs ( Fackrell, Hawkins, & Kay, 2011 ; Pollet & Lombreglia, 2008 ; Sigal, Sandler, Wolchik, & Braver, 2011 ) and several earlier reviews ( Braver, Salem, Pearson, & Deluse, 1996 ; Hughes & Kirby, 2000 ; Kramer & Kowal, 1998 ; Thoennes & Pearson, 1999 ) provide conflicting conclusions regarding the effectiveness of these programs. The most positive of the three recent reviews ( Pollet & Lombreglia, 2008 ) summarizes the conclusions presented by the program providers in journal articles without analyzing the research methods used to arrive at the conclusions. Nearly all outcomes measured were self-reported by attendees. The second review detailed a meta-analytic study of twenty-eight court-affiliated mandatory and voluntary programs targeting parents ( Fackrell, Hawkins, & Kay, 2011 ). The overall effect size for the nineteen control group studies was d = .39 ( p 〈 .000) indicating a moderate effect size. Examination of five specific outcomes also yielded generally moderate effect sizes for: co-parenting conflict, d = .36 ( p 〈 .001, k = 17); parent–child relationships and parental discipline, d = .49 ( p 〈 .01, k = 9); child well-being, d = .34 ( p 〈 .001, k = 5). Results for parental well-being was large at d = .61, although the significance of the effect was marginal ( p 〈 .10, k = 17). The result for differences in relitigation rates was reported to be small and insignificant at d = .19, k = 6. The authors conclude that the results of the meta-analysis are encouraging; however, relatively few IDEPs have been evaluated for effectiveness using sound experimental techniques (e.g., observational measures of child outcomes, objective measures of parent and child outcomes, long-term outcomes, randomized assignment).

The final review of IDEPs was an in-depth analysis of fourteen published studies evaluating various Parent Education Programs ( Sigal, Sandler, Wolchik & Braver, 2011 ). These authors found that there was a high level of reported satisfaction with the PEPs studied, but they took a more critical stance toward the adequacy of the research thus far. These authors concluded that because of limitations in study designs (e.g., lack of random assignment, clear specification of treatment, sufficient sample sizes, reliable and valid measures of outcomes), there is currently little evidence that the programs are achieving their stated goals of improving the quality of nonresidential parent–child contact, fostering quality parent–child relationships with both parents, reducing interparental conflict, improving co-parenting, reducing relitigation, or improving outcomes for children. The authors also note that it is premature to argue that the programs do not work; rather, it is more accurate to conclude that the programs have not been subjected to rigorous evaluation, so it is unclear whether or not they are effective ( Sigal et al., 2011 ).

Multisession Group Treatments for Parents and Children

Although research assessing the effectiveness of short-term, informational, often mandatory, court-connected divorce education programs (IDEPS) targeting parents is at best encouraging, there now exists strong evidence of the efficacy of several carefully designed randomized controlled trials of voluntary divorce-focused preventive parenting programs, some focusing on fathers ( Braver, Griffin, & Cookston, 2005 ; Cookston, Braver, Griffin, Deluse, & Miles, 2006 ; DeGarmo & Forgatch, 2005 ; DeGarmo, Patterson, & Forgatch, 2004 ), others focusing on mothers (Sandler, Miles, Cookston, & Braver, 2008; Zhou, Sandler, Millsap, Wolchik, & Dawson-McClure, 2008 ), and still others focused on stepfamilies ( Forgatch, DeGarmo, & Beldavs, 2005 ) and stepfathers specifically ( Bullard, Wachlarowicz, DeLeeuw, Snyder, Low, Forgatch, & DeGarmo, 2010 ; DeGarmo & Forgatch, 2007 ).

Sandler, Schoenfelder, Wolchik, and McKinnon (2010) found that outcome evaluations indicate that intervention effects on important aspects of parenting, including improvements in the quality of the parent–child relationship and increases in effective discipline ( DeGarmo & Forgatch, 2005 ; Wolchik, Sandler, Milsap, Plummer, & Greene, 2002 ), and increases in maternal warmth ( Wolchik et al., 2002 ). Improvements were found to last from 1 year after completion from the program ( Forgatch, Patterson, DeGarmo, & Beldavis, 2009 ) up to 6 years after completion ( Wolchik et al., 2002 ). The programs were also effective in reducing several important child and adolescent problems 2 to 9 years after intervention, including diagnosed mental disorders ( Wolchik et al., 2002 ), externalizing behavior problems ( DeGarmo & Forgatch, 2005 ; Wolchik et al., 2002 ), police arrests and delinquency ( Forgatch, et al., 2009 ), internalizing problems ( Braver, Griffin, & Cookston, 2005 ; Wolchik et al., 2002 ), substance use ( Wolchik et al., 2002 ), school performance, self-esteem, risky sexual behaviors, and active coping ( Wolchik et al., 2002 ). Interestingly, the New Beginnings Program ( Wolchik, et al., 2002 ) found that adding a child component to the parent intervention program did not provide significant additive effects over and above the parental program. In addition, stronger effects occurred for those who were at higher risk when entering the intervention program.

Important issues for the future of prevention programs for divorcing families are dissemination and broadening the scope to other, more complex family forms. Although the efficacy of these parenting interventions on improving long-term outcomes for youth is clear, what is less clear is whether effectiveness research in practice settings can also maintain the positive effects. Exciting new research is underway examining whether this is possible. The New Beginnings Program is currently being implemented in six community-based test sites (personal communication with Irwin Sandler, June 4, 2011 ). Another important focus is to extend the reach of these programs to include stepparents in the programs. Before age 13 years, 50 percent of children in the United States will live in a family that includes a biological parent and an intimate partner of the biological parent ( Stewart, 2007 ). The constellations of these families are complex and can include children brought to the new family from both partners and birth children of the new unions. Parenting practices in these complex families are extremely challenging.

Research on Nonmarital Unions and Stepfamilies

In 2007, nearly 40 percent of all children born in the United States were born to unmarried parents ( Ventura, 2009 ). These rates are up from 34 percent in 2002 and nearly double the rate in 1980 (18.4 percent) ( Ventura, 2009 ). In the past decade, research on nonmarital (cohabitating) and informal unions is increasing both in quantity and sophistication. The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS) is a collaboration between Columbia and Princeton Universities investigating a nationally representative, longitudinal survey of 5,000 children born in the United States between 1998 and 2000, including a large oversampling of children born to unmarried parents (3,700 born to unmarried mothers and 1,200 to married mothers) ( McLanahan, Garfinkel, Mincy, & Donahue, 2010 ; Osborne, McLanahan, & Brooks-Gunn, 2004 ). Parents were interviewed in the hospital immediately after the birth of a child with follow-up interviews when the same child was 1, 3, and 5 years old ( http://www.fragilefamilies.princeton.edu/ ).

The FFCWS findings indicate that most unmarried parents were romantically involved at the time of the child’s birth. Fifty percent of the couples were living together, another 32 percent were “visiting” (romantically involved but living apart), and 18 percent were “single” (8 percent were friends and 10 percent reported little to no contact) ( McLanahan & Beck, 2010 ). Therefore, approximately half of these children live at least initially with a single mother, whereas the other half live with both biological parents in a cohabitating union ( Waldfogel, Craigie, & Brooks-Gunn, 2010 ).

The stability of these families was, however, fragile. Approximately 60 percent of the relationships dissolved within 5 years of the child’s birth ( McLanahan & Beck, 2010 ). Of the three types of unions, cohabitating unions were the most stable, with 60 percent still living together or married 5 years after birth, compared with only 20 percent of the visiting parents. Adding to the complexity of these families, of those relationships that did not remain stable, many mothers (20 percent for cohabitating to 45 percent for single) formed new co-residential relationships and had an additional child or children (15 percent for cohabitating and 33 percent for single) by year 5 ( McLanahan & Beck, 2010 ).

Concerning the processes and consequences for children, the FFCWS assessed cognitive development, behavioral problems, and child health (obesity, asthma, hospitalization, accidents or injuries in the past year, and overall health). For those children of unmarried parents at the time of the birth but later married, the marriage improved the cognitive scores of their children compared with children whose biological parents never married ( Liu & Heiland, 2008 ). For children who remained in nonmarital families, consistent findings from several researchers indicated that the stability of the family form was the important factor in the children’s cognitive development. Children living under stable single-parent or stable cohabitating unions fared better than children in homes that were unstable ( Craigie, 2008 ). This finding has held with other data sets. Amato (2003) found a direct negative relationship between the number of family transitions and levels of psychological well-being of children. Sun and Li (2001) also found that the negative effects of multiple family transitions on children’s academic achievement were not only sustained but also could escalate over time.

The pattern of findings for the FFCWS data was more mixed for behavioral problems. Behavioral problems were elevated in cohabitating and single-parent families compared with married families and grew worse with each change in family structure ( Waldfogel et al., 2010 ). Behavioral problems were also elevated in stable single-mother families; however, mothers’ level of stress and parenting quality mediated this association ( Osborne & McLanahan, 2007 ; Waldfogel et al., 2010 ). Using a separate data set with observational measures and analyzing family structure and mother–child interactions by race and ethnicity, researchers found that a cohabitating relationship was not uniformly associated with more positive mother–child interaction; cohabitation was particularly difficult for the relationships of Hispanic women and their children ( Gibson-Davis & Gassman-Pines, 2010 ).

Data from the FFCWS concerning child health outcomes indicate that, overall, children born into nonmarital unions show consistently worse health even when researchers control for other potential differences (maternal age, race and ethnicity, education) ( Bzostek & Beck, 2008 ; Waldfogel et al., 2010 ). Single-mother headed households have the worst outcomes on all five measures of child health, whereas cohabitating families have poorer outcomes on some but not all measures ( Bzostek & Beck, 2008 ; Waldfogel, et al. 2010 ). Although these analyses considered and controlled for important group differences, not many do; thus, selection effects could drive some of the differences between unmarried unions and married families. In addition, only a limited number of studies investigate the influence of the children themselves on the family environments ( Hawkins, Amato, & King, 2007 ).

In terms of the number of stepfamilies, a historically strong finding in the literature is that the majority of divorced parents do remarry; 68 percent of women over age 25 years and 81 percent of women under age 25 years remarry within 10 years after divorce ( Bramlett & Mosher, 2002 ). This study also found that between 34 and 50 percent of these second marriages dissolve within the first 10 years of remarriage. Focusing on the number of people with stepfamily relatives, a recent nationally representative study of 2,691 adults found that 42 percent of the adults surveyed indicated they had at least one step relative, 30 percent had a step or half sibling, 18 percent had a living stepparent, and 13 percent had a stepchild (Pew Research Center, 2011). The demographic pattern of those who are most likely to live in a stepfamily is also the same as that of those who are most likely to cohabitate rather than marry (young people, blacks, those of lower income, and those without a college degree). Also, research finds that cohabitating couples are more likely to enter a new union with children (48 percent) than are those who remarry (37 percent) ( Coleman, Ganong, & Fine, 2000 ).

What has not been studied until recently is the process of postdivorce repartnering (the movement in and out of new romantic relationships) during the intermarriage interval. Anderson and Greene (2005) found that within 60 days of the divorce filing, 45 percent of parents in their study were dating in some form, 26 percent were interested but had not met someone, and 29 percent were not interested in dating. By the 2-year follow-up, 86 percent reported some dating experience, 71 percent reported having a serious relationship, and 24 percent reported a break-up of a serious relationship. Thus, there appear to be many transitions within the first 2 years after divorce.

A recent study focused on factors leading to the instability of second marriages and found that women who brought stepchildren into their second marriage experienced a higher risk of divorce, although the reverse was not true (man bringing a child into a second marriage) ( Teachman, 2008 ). Cohabitating with or having a child while cohabitating with a man, who eventually became a husband, also did not increase the risk of divorce ( Teachman, 2008 ). If this trend holds, it is women with children from previous relationships who are at highest risk of multiple family structure changes. This finding is important in that, as noted earlier, 40 percent of children are born to unmarried parents, and the vast majority of children remain with their mothers after divorce.

Although remarriage can have positive effects on physical and emotional well-being and standard of living, it does not appear to be as consistently positive for children ( Amato, 2000 ). When comparing children living with a stepparent rather than a single mother, poorer outcomes were found for children living in stepparent families concerning emotional well-being but somewhat better outcomes were found for these children concerning health and some behavioral measures ( Amato, 2000 ; Sweeney, 2010 ). The variability in outcomes may be partly due to the variability in dynamics of stepfamilies and in particular the variability in relationships between stepparents and stepchildren and between step and half siblings (Sweeney, 2010). For example, not surprisingly, high-quality relationships with both resident stepfathers and nonresident biological fathers are associated with better outcomes for children ( Sweeney, 2010 ). Consequences for children living in stepfamilies are complex, given that most children live through a parental break-up, live with a single parent, and then live through several relationship transitions ( Anderson & Greene, 2005 ) before living with a stepparent ( Sweeney, 2010 ). Disentangling the effects of these family transitions from those from the stepparent per se is difficult.

Emerging Themes and Future Directions

In concluding his review article on the past decade of research on divorce for the Journal of Marriage and Family,   Amato (2010) outlines eleven areas for future research. Rather than simply reiterate his points, our final section of this chapter attempts to build on Amato’s (2010) major conclusions; we emphasize the areas he covered that we view to be particularly important and also try to outline other new and emerging research directions.

What Are the Psychological Mechanisms that Underpin Resilience in Children and Adults after Divorce?

The general literature on human resilience to stress is well developed, but we know far less about why and how some people fare well or poorly following divorce. Research in the area of post-traumatic ( Tedeschi & Calhoun, 2004 ; Tedeschi, Park, & Calhoun, 1998 ) and stress-related ( Park, Cohen, & Murch, 1996 ; Park & Helgeson, 2006 ) growth is beginning to shed light on how people can thrive in the face of even severe adversities. The essential idea underpinning these constructs is that difficult life events challenge people’s basic beliefs about the world and their place in the world, which then initiates the search for meaning to rebuild these beliefs (see Janoff-Bulman, 1992 ). Although notable controversies surround the measurement of perceptions of growth, evidence indicates that actual growth following a traumatic event is associated with improved (self-reported) well-being ( Frazier et al., 2009 ). Applied to the study of divorce, these constructs hold much potential for future work ( Tashiro & Frazier, 2003 ; Tashiro, Frazier, & Berman, 2006 ), but many questions remain. In what ways are beliefs about a just world and meaning structures disrupted by divorce? Among adults and children who are challenged or stressed by divorce, what characteristics promote meaning making and the emergence of growth? These are essential questions for understanding the mechanisms that define resilient outcomes in the face of marital dissolution, and the field will benefit from basic research rooted in theories of stress-related growth.

Deeper into Social Selection and Social Causation

At this point, it is incontrovertible that some of the alleged (child and adult) outcomes of divorce may be predate the divorce itself or be explained by the same underlying genetic associations that account for poor divorce outcomes (e.g., temperament or personality). What is not yet clear is precisely which outcomes can be deemed causal consequences of marital separation and divorce. The field needs to become aware of replicated findings from CoT and co-twin control designs, and then place greater emphasis on explaining the mechanisms of these outcomes in particular. In addition, experiments and clinical interventions remain the best way to determine causation. As reviewed above, child outcomes can be improved through parent education programs, but there is limited experimental or intervention research in the area of adult adjustment (for an exception, see Rye, Folck, Heim, Olszewski, & Traina, 2004 ). There is no area in which this is as critical as isolating the potential causal effects on adults’ health outcomes. Cohen and Janicki-Deverts (2009) recently argued that with the exception of a very few studies, the entire literature on social relationships and health is correlational in nature. In order to understand whether the social and psychological correlates of divorce translate into risk for poor health outcomes, interventions that target these social and psychological processes can be designed, and health-relevant biomarkers can be examined. An increase in experimentation and treatment development in this area would be a major contribution.

Learning More about Diverse Family Forms

Because of the sheer numbers of children living in complex and fluid family forms, much more attention needs to be placed on understanding these family forms and their effects on adults and children. Children in multiple-transition families are thrust into and then back out of relationships with adults, new stepsiblings, grandparents, and extended families. These changes in the demographics of any particular family, as well as in families in general, have led to new questions. Questions concerning the trajectories of parental relationships when partners have children from multiple partners, and the trajectories of children in these complex family forms, are very important to more fully understand. Recent evidence indicates, for example, that children born to men with children from prior partners will be less likely to grow up in an intact family, that the women who partner with these men are likely to spend time as a single parent, and that men who have children from multiple partners are less likely to establish stable family households ( Monte, 2011 ). The sheer diversity of family forms emerging today has many ramifications for many important legal, societal, and personal outcomes (e.g., custody, parenting time, calculations and payment of consistent child support, odds of marriage), leading to new research questions. For example, are current and formal, legal and cohabitating, partners of biological parents (and children of those dispirit unions) to be considered family ( Schmeeckle, Giarrusso, Feng, & Bengtson, 2006 )? Recent research examining the relationship between adult children and former stepparents indicates that, under certain circumstances (e.g., co-residence, marriage to biological parent, the perception of stepparent as a parent), these relationships continue ( Schmeeckle et al., 2006 ).

Legal, Psycholegal, and Therapeutic Interventions for Complex Families

What are the best ways to serve these complex families through legal, psycholegal, and therapeutic interventions? The information gleaned from additional research with these families can be used to assess and revise mediation, parenting coordination, parent education, and existing multisession group treatments for stepparents. Recent research in just one of these areas (multisession group interventions) indicates that it is in its infancy and suffers from many of the same problems as other programs for families (i.e., small samples, no control groups, no randomization to treatments, short-term follow-up periods, and no standardized outcome measures) ( Bullard et al., 2010 ; Whitton, Nicholson & Markman, 2008 ). One program for new stepfamilies is focused on enhancing parental practices in five core areas: skill encouragement, discipline, monitoring, problem solving, and positive involvement. The results of a randomized controlled trial with 2-year follow-up found that this program enhanced marital relationship processes, improved parenting practices, prevented deterioration in mothers’ marital satisfaction, and prevented increased teacher reports of children’s externalizing behavior problems ( Bullard et al, 2010 ).

Concluding Remarks

This chapter reviewed a relatively large body of research on the demography, the predictors, and the mental and physical health correlates of marital separation and divorce. We also reviewed research on several psycholegal intervention and prevention programs, as well as the changing face of American families and the implications of divorce for changing family structures. The chapter closes with a series of questions that are open for future research. We emphasize the need to (1) learn more about the social selection and causation processes that are operating to explain health outcomes; (2) focus greater research attention of resilience—for both children and adults—in the face of divorce, as well as the mechanisms that explain psychological outcomes following marital dissolution; (3) conduct more research on prevention programs, including mandated parenting education programs and voluntary multisession group treatments for parents and children; and (4) develop a deeper understanding of how the intervention and prevention programs can be readily applied to complex family situations that involve not only the dissolution of legal marriages but also the end of nonmarital unions. It is clear that these issues require interdisciplinary research, and advances will be realized through research that integrates, in some capacity, sociological, psychological, and legal theory and scholarship.

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THE COLLABORATIVE DIVORCE PROJECT: A Court-Based Intervention for Separating Parents with Young Children

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Development of a questionnaire to measure perceived reasons for divorce seeking: an instrument development study

Mohammad eslami.

1 Ph.D. of Health Education, Assistant Professor, Department of Population and Family Health, Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Tehran, Iran

Mahdieh Yazdanpanah

2 M.D., Expert on Reproductive Health, Department of Population and Family Health, Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Tehran, Iran

Parnian Andalib

3 M.Sc., Expert on Reproductive Health, Department of Population and Family Health, Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Tehran, Iran

Azardokht Rahimi

Mansoureh safizadeh.

4 M.D. Expert on Reproductive Health, Department of Population and Family Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran

Adeleh Dadvar

5 M.Sc. Expert on Reproductive Health, Department of Population and Family Health, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran

Nouzar Nakhaee

6 M.D. Professor, Neuroscience Research Center, Kerman University of Medical Sciences, Kerman, Iran

Subjective accounts of divorce seeking individuals is a useful complement to sociological and psychological causes of divorce at both individual and community level. Regarding the increasing trend of divorce worldwide, the need for a questionnaire measuring subjective reasons of divorce is felt more and more.

The aim of this study was to develop and validate perceived causes of a divorce questionnaire in Iranian society.

This was an instrument development study that carried out in 2016, based on extensive literature reviews and interviews with individuals referring to “Family Intervention Centers to Reduce Divorce” in Kerman, Fars and Alborz provinces (Iran). At first, 38 items expressing the perceived reasons for divorce were extracted; then, 29 items were used in the questionnaire according to the experts’ judgment. After that, the questionnaire was given to 570 participants. The structural validity was evaluated using two methods: exploratory factor analysis via principle axis factoring, and known group comparisons by paired-samples t-test. The internal consistency of the questionnaire was also examined by calculating the Cronbach’s alpha and corrected item-total correlation. SPSS version 20 was used for statistical analysis.

The mean age (± SD) of women and men was 32.3 (±8.9) and 36.8 (±10.6), respectively. Based on an expert panel, content validity of 29 items was approved. Using principle axis factoring and varimax rotation, two components were extracted. These two factors were called “instrumental/external reasons” and “expressive and relationship-centered reasons.” Factor loading of all 29 items was higher than 0.32. Cronbach’s alpha of the two subscales was 0.84 and 0.85, respectively. Corrected item-scale coefficient of all items was more than 0.2.

Conclusions

According to the acceptable validity and reliability of the Perceived Reasons for Divorce Seeking Questionnaire, it can be used to ascertain people’s reasons for divorce seeking.

1. Introduction

Marriage is a part of life in almost all Western and Eastern culture ( 1 ). There are varied motives behind marriage including the need for social and emotional support, love and friendship and sexual relations ( 2 ). Divorce is considered a social issue when it exceeds the normal limit and becomes unconventional. In this regard, divorce is no longer a personal problem, but rather it is a multi-stage process that not only affects the way people interact in a family, but also causes severe harm to the community ( 3 ). Observing the circumstances of divorce is important not only from the aspects of its impact on the husband, wife and their children but also from the negative consequences on the whole society and economy such as the increased risk for major depression and poverty, and lower life expectancy ( 4 ). Divorce is one of the social harms which has significantly increased in most countries in recent decades ( 5 ). In recent years, the divorce trend and marriage instability have increased in Iran, which is currently considered one of the countries with high divorce rates ( 6 ). In 2011, the divorce rate in Iran was 2.5% per 1,000 in the age group of 15–64; it is even higher than the figure reported in some western countries including Ireland, Italy and Spain ( 6 ). Considering the increasing trend of divorce, paying attention to its causes is of particular importance ( 5 ). It is customary to ask the experts to understand the reasons and causes of these problems ( 5 ), and it is less likely to ask a layperson ( 7 ). There are three perspectives to determining divorce factors ( 7 ). In the sociological approach, phenomena such as individualism, modernization and life course predictors of divorce are discussed ( 7 ). In the psychological approach, variables such as personality traits, mental health and the quality of relationships between husbands and wives are considered ( 8 ). In the third approach, people are asked about the perceived causes of divorce ( 7 ). Amato and Previti stated that this research approach “provides a useful complement to more objective methods and is necessary for a full understanding of the divorce process.” ( 7 ). Furthermore, in his well-known article, Slovic emphasized the layperson’s viewpoint in planning to prevent community problems and stated, “their basic conceptualization of risk is much richer than that of the experts” ( 9 ). One of the strengths of using this method is that the reasons obtained from this kind of research are culturally appropriate ( 10 ). Moreover, planning to change the behavior of people “without understanding individuals’ reason for engaging in the behavior, is condemned to failure” ( 11 ).

In Iran, few studies have been conducted on personal reasons of divorce, in which the questionnaires were researcher made with insufficient evidence of psychometric properties ( 12 , 13 ). The most comprehensive study regarding people’s reasons for divorce was done by Amato and Previti ( 7 ). In this study, they summarized the results of the related researches and concluded that infidelity was the most common reported reason for divorce ( 7 ). Despite introducing a comprehensive list of reasons in such studies, we found no study that had solely addressed a standard questionnaire regarding the issue. Although some research has been conducted in Iran on divorce etiology from the viewpoints of individuals facing divorce or those who are divorced, no questionnaire whose psychometric properties have been proved has been introduced in the literature, as far as it is concerned. The aim of this study was to create a questionnaire about the perceived reasons for divorce seeking in Iranian society, which, in addition to using indigenous studies, may also be informative for family scholars in other countries. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study introducing a questionnaire measuring people’s reasons for request for divorce, specifically.

2. Material and Methods

2.1. instrument.

This was an instrument development study that carried out in 2016. At first, a questionnaire consisting of 38 questions was prepared based on the extensive literature review ( 7 , 12 – 14 ) and interviews with couples seeking divorce and an expert panel focus group. The main source of item extraction was an Amato and Previti study ( 7 ) and a relevant study conducted in Tehran ( 13 ), and also the checklists and documents of the State Welfare Organization of Iran. After extraction of the first 38 items, we conducted face-to-face interviews with a subsample of 20 divorce volunteers to examine the comprehensibility and face validity of the items. The focus group consisted of five experts in divorce counseling. Their specialty was in community medicine, psychiatry, psychology, and counselling. The focus group discussion lasted 2 hours in one session. Then, the content validity of these questions was evaluated consensually, based on the judgment of the expert panel ( 15 ); the content validity and face validity of 29 questions was ultimately approved based on this qualitative method. It was named Perceived Reasons for Divorce Seeking Questionnaire (PRDSQ). Finally, these questions were given to 570 couples. They were enrolled in the study based on convenience sampling. Considering the subject to item ratio of 20, sample size was calculated to be 580 for factor analysis of the 29 items of the questionnaire ( 16 ). In the introduction of the questionnaire, respondents were asked to specify the role and importance of each item statement in their marital dissolution using a five-point Likert scale. Responses included the following: 0: Not at all important, 1: Low importance, 2: Moderately important, 3: Very important, 4: Extremely important. So the questionnaire would display the most and/or the least important personal reasons for divorce.

2.2. Setting

This was a methodological study, carried out in 2016 using a cross sectional design. The subjects of this study were consecutively recruited from the centers of three provinces of Kerman, Fars and Alborz. These subjects included couples who had referred to family courts for divorce and then had been referred by the court to “Family Intervention Centers to Reduce Divorce” of which there are certified consultants. All of the referees were invited to participate in the study and the only exclusion criterion was unwillingness to complete the questionnaire. In these centers, the questionnaires were given separately to the husbands and wives; after explaining the questionnaires, the couples were asked to complete the questionnaires anonymously. In addition to providing counseling services, these centers attempt to bring the couples back to their normal lives and persuade them not to seek divorce. If the consent is obtained and the divorce is canceled, an arrangement letter is issued; otherwise, a divorce certificate is issued.

2.3. Translation

Since the original questionnaire was in Persian, to assure equivalence of the English translated version, the process of forward and backward translation was performed ( 16 ). The content and semantic equivalence of the translated version was established.

2.4. Ethical considerations

The protocol for this study was approved by the Ethics Committee of Kerman University of Medical Sciences (code: IR.KMU.REC1394.740). Before study enrollment, oral informed consent was obtained from potential participants. Confidentiality of the data was assured.

2.5. Statistical analysis

To analyze the construct validity of the PRDSQ, two methods were used: exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and known group comparisons ( 16 ). Correlation matrix of each pair of variables was checked prior to conducting factor analysis. Factorability was assessed via Bartlett’s test of sphericity and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) statistic. For EFA, extraction was performed using principal axis factoring, and varimax rotation was used ( 17 ). The number of factors was determined using scree plot ( 17 ). The items with a loading factor of higher than 0.32 were kept in the questionnaire ( 17 ). To understand the local independency of the items, residual correlations were calculated ( 18 ). According to Amato and Previti, the perceived causes of divorce in women are expected to differ from men since emotional and relational issues are more important in women’s views ( 7 ). Thus, the mean scores of the two factors of the PRDSQ were compared between women and their husbands using the paired-samples t-test ( 16 ). Two methods were used to analyze the reliability. Primarily, Cronbach’s alpha of the factors constituting the questionnaire was calculated. In addition, Cronbach’s alpha if an item deleted, was also measured for each item. In the second method, the corrected item scale correlation was calculated for the items and a coefficient higher than 0.2 was considered as an indication that each item in the scale is adequately associated with the total score ( 16 ). Ceiling and floor effects for each subscale were calculated.

In this study, 1,140 people consisting of 570 couples in three provinces were enrolled. The demographic characteristics of men and women referred to these centers are shown in Table 1 . Mean ± SD age male and female participants were 36.8±10.6 and 32.3±8.9 years, respectively. Both content and face validity of the 29 items were confirmed based on the opinions of experts and divorce seeking individuals, respectively. According to correlation matrix, there was no multicollinearity between the items (i.e., all coefficients were lower than ±0.90. Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of adequacy of samples was 0.922. P-value of the Bartlett’s test of Sphericity was <0.001. Using principal axis factoring and varimax rotation, two factors were extracted (the loading factor of each item is shown in Table 2 ). Two factors were entitled “expressive and relationship-centered” and ““instrumental/external” factors. They explained 34.4% of the variance (27.5% and 7.9% for each factor, respectively). The scree plot ( Figure 1 ) confirmed the two-factor nature of the questionnaire. According to the loading factor ( Table 2 ), questions 1, 2, 4, 5, 7–10, 12, 13, 17, 20–22, 28, and 29 were placed in the instrumental/external factor and the rest of the questions were placed in the expressive and relationship-centered factor. The residual correlation in all items was less than 0.1, indicating that the items were independent of one another and did not measure one thing. The results of the analysis of “Cronbach’s alpha and corrected item-scale correlation” are shown in Table 2 . Corrected item-scale correlation in all items was higher than 0.2. Cronbach’s alpha of two “expressive and relationship-centered” and “instrumental/external” factors was 0.85 and 0.84, respectively. Comparison of the scores of these two factors between men and women suggested that the score was significantly higher in women than in men ( Table 3 ). Moreover, the expressive and relationship-centered score in both women and men was higher than that of the instrumental/external factor. There were no floor and ceiling effects. As a whole, 1.5% and 0.1% of participants achieved the lowest and the highest possible score, respectively.

Demographic features of the subjects (n=570 couples)

Factor loadings of each item and results of the reliability analysis

Comparison of the mean score of the two components of the PRDSQ * in men and women

4. Discussion

In order to understand the etiology of divorce, it is important to understand the perceived causes of couples seeking divorce ( 7 ). This study showed that PRDSQ had acceptable validity and reliability to assess the personal causes of divorce. The strength of this study was that it used an adequate number of samples in three different provinces of Iran. Most studies conducted on the issue of divorce are mainly based on the expert’s viewpoints and have not focused on the perceived reasons of people ( 7 ). Moreover, most studies published in international journals on perceived causes of divorce have been carried out in Western countries ( 19 ). In Iran, a small number of studies conducted on this issue either have not provided sufficient evidence concerning their validity and reliability of their tools ( 13 , 14 ), or have examined a specific subpopulation ( 12 ). Correlation matrix was in favor of patterned relationship amongst the items. The results of the KMO and Bartlett’s tests indicated that the questionnaire was suitable for factor analysis and since the KMO number was greater than 0.9, it was considered as an excellent measure of sampling adequacy ( 20 ). Two components were extracted, based on scree plot. Concerning the content of the questions and according to Amato and Previti categorization of personal causes of divorce, we named these two factors “instrumental/external” and “expressive and relationship-centered” reasons ( 7 ). The two broad-spectrum subjective causes of divorce in a US population were studied to be either related to external factors such as financial problems and emotional and relational issues such as spouse’s emotional abuse and/or infidelity ( 7 ). In a study conducted on divorce seeking women in Iran, four domains were explored based on factor analysis, in which three factors were related to the husband’s issues (social abnormalities, lack of social skills and wife neglect) and the fourth factor was related to the spouse’s family mismatches ( 12 ). In this study, most items focused on husband problems which may be due to the fact that all participants were women. In our study, we tried to enroll both couples to avoid any gender related bias when exploring the subjective reasons for divorce.

The loading factor of all 29 questions was above the acceptable level of 0.32 ( 17 ). None of the items had a residual correlation of higher than 0.1, indicating that the items were not similar and had no overlap, and every item asked about a separate and different issue ( 18 ). The amount of explained variance in our study was lower than the recommended value of 50% ( 20 ), which may be due to extraction of only two factors. Since “retaining too many factors can deplete the solution erroneously resulting in weak factor loadings” ( 20 ) and based on conceptual examination of the items, we preferred to emphasize on the two-factor solution. In the Iranian study on divorce factors among women, the proposed questionnaire, which consisted of 145 items, yielded four factors accounting for 41% of total variance ( 12 ). The score of the PRDSQ was greater in women that in men (in both subscales), in other words, women had more credence to both emotional and external factors compared to men. It has been well documented that women, more often than men, blame the divorce on relational and emotional factors such as general lack of love ( 7 ). Moreover, the relationship-centered reasons were taken into more consideration than the instrumental/external reasons, which is in line with the findings of relevant studies ( 7 ). The statistical difference between the views of men and women in both domains of the questionnaire ( 7 ) met the predefined expectations, and thus the known group validity of the questionnaire was confirmed ( 16 ). Cronbach’s alpha of the two components of the questionnaire (both above the minimum acceptable level of 0.7) showed good internal consistency of the questionnaire. Corrected item-scale correlation in all items was higher than the minimum acceptable of 0.2, which was another reason for the reliability of the questionnaire ( 16 ). Both ceiling and floor effects were acceptable, which is in favor of content validity ( 21 ). The PRDSQ Cronbach’s alpha was higher than other Iranian questionnaires. In a study conducted on divorce seeking couples referring to Tehran Family Courts, the Cronbach’s alpha of the questionnaire was 0.7 ( 13 ) and the corresponding figure in another Iranian study was 0.6 ( 12 ). Nunnally suggested that at least two criteria should be used to assess the psychometric properties of the questionnaire in measuring both the validity and the reliability ( 22 ). Although confirmatory factor analysis was not checked, the validity of the questionnaire was calculated using three ways of content validity, factorial validity and known group validity, and reliability was measured through Cronbach’s alpha and corrected item-scale correlation. The study had two limitations. First, it was preferable to use a more representative sample from all regions of the country. Second, to find out the number of factors, more objective methods rather than scree plot may be used.

5. Conclusions

In short, the findings showed that the psychometric properties of this questionnaire were acceptable for measuring the perceived causes of divorce seeking in Iranian society. The implication of the study is that it provides a framework for researchers and family counselors to explore the subjective and personal reasons for marital dissolution via a valid and reliable tool. Awareness of counsellors about perceived reasons for divorce seeking in referees to courts and counselling centers would improve the plans for early interventions to solve marital conflicts. To further confirm the construct validity of the PRDSQ it warrants future research using confirmatory factor analysis.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the State Welfare Organization of Iran for facilitating the data gathering process. We also thank the Department of Population and Family Health, and the Ministry of Health and Medical Education for financial support.

iThenticate screening: January 23, 2018, English editing: May 12, 2018, Quality control: May 14, 2018

This article has been reviewed/commented by five experts

Ethics approval: IR.KMU.REC1394.740

Conflict of Interest:

There is no conflict of interest to be declared.

Authors’ contributions:

All authors contributed to this project and article equally. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Divorce Research Paper

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Introduction

Public pronouncements and vital social statistics, the social myth surrounding divorce, the marriage and divorce data, conclusion: marriage and divorce in the 21st century.

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The perpetuity of marriage is enforced by law as a protection for children, for whose education and support society as such makes no other provision than the frequently aborted attempt to compel an efficient guardianship of the parent by penal enactments. (Andrews 1975:12) Academic Writing, Editing, Proofreading, And Problem Solving Services Get 10% OFF with 24START discount code var form_action="https://www.iresearchnet.com/order/"; var partner_id = 3870; var sub_id = "CAL"; (function() { var sc = document.createElement('script'); sc.type = 'text/javascript'; sc.async = true; sc.src = 'https://www.edu-profit.com/orderformph-new3.js'; var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(sc, s); })(); The Romans bemoaned their high divorce rates, which they contrasted with an earlier era of family stability. The European settlers in America began lamenting the decline of the family and the disobedience of women and children almost as soon as they stepped off the boats. (Coontz 2005:1) No trend in American life since World War II has received more attention or caused more concern than the rising rate of divorce. (Cherlin 1992:20) (adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

As an often-cited U.S. government report indicates, “Current concerns about the condition of the American family, as well as discussion about ‘family values’ indicate a need for timely information about factors contributing to major shifts in family structure” (Norton and Miller 1992:iii). With the emphasis on marriage, divorce, and remarriage, the government is looking closely at well-known sociological facts pertaining to changes in the family, sex and gender roles, and issues relating to human sexuality. As noted by Cherlin (1992), “Although the family undoubtedly has a future, its present form differs from its past form in important aspects, at least in part because of recent changes in patterns of cohabiting, marrying, divorcing, and remarrying” (p. 2).

Although marriage may be a damaged institution (Cherlin 1992) and a marriage crisis is a global concern (Coontz 2005:2–3), social attitudes do not necessarily reflect a consistent assessment of these occurrences. Early alarmists, such as William F. Ogburn (1927) and Ogburn and Nimkoff (1955), who considered the family as a damaged institution and thus as a subject of sociological inquiry, raised important problems concerning marriage and divorce. In addressing family issues, these sociologists recognized that the economic, protective, recreational, and religious functions of the family had shifted since the 1920s. Consequently, functions like as protection, education, economics, religious instruction, and recreation have been outsourced to other institutions (Newman 1950; Zellner 2001:38–39). Indeed, the economic unit functions of the family were replaced by the factory, the restaurant, and the store, while the protective responsibilities were assumed by the courts, the school, and the health department (Ogburn 1927:7).

William Fielding Ogburn wrote in 1927 that marriage is a significant social institution due to its correlation with happiness. Ogburn may have been the first analyst to discover the significant disparity in the mortality rates of married and unmarried men. He acknowledged that divorce is of particular significance to society because, as he notes (p. 7), divorce typically occurs with the expectation that a new family will be created through remarriage.

In 1632, the Grand Assembly of Virginia mandated that all ministers in the commonwealth record all burials, christenings, and marriages. Since then, the United States has maintained a long tradition of recording key occurrences. In 1639, the Massachusetts Bay Colony established a law mandating that all births, funerals, and marriages be recorded by government officials. Other colonies, including Plymouth Colony in 1646 and the Connecticut Court of Elections in 1644 and 1650, quickly ordered town clerks or registrars to record similar birth, marriage, and death information. In Massachusetts, however, a regular registration system and form were not established until 1842, when the Secretary of the Commonwealth assumed responsibility for collecting such data (Jacobson 1959:7–8).

Vital data such as births, deaths, marriages, and divorces were well-recognized declarations of public significance before the mid-1850s, when the collection of vital information became an important part of the official state census gathering. Possibly for this reason alone, the philosophy around marriage and divorce, especially in the United States, has been hampered by social, religious, and political interpretations for a very long time. Further legislation was interrupted by the Civil War, but in 1889, an issue of the Political Science Quarterly lent credence to the fact that issues relating to marriage and divorce were receiving significant exposure. Dike (1889) noted the following:

Twenty years ago President Woolsey’s Divorce and Divorce Legislation contained in a dozen scanty pages about all the existing statistics regarding both this country and Europe. Since then, the collections of their statistics by four or five more states (in a meager way, excepting the excellent work in Massachusetts begun by Mr. Wright, the Commissioner of Labor in 1879 and contained since under provision of statute); [and] the few additions by the National Divorce Reform League. (P. 592) Lobbying for more efficient registration legislation led to important advances at the federal level by the early twentieth century with the creation in 1902 of the Bureau of the Census and, in 1903, a Congressional resolution calling for a cooperative effort between the states and the newly established Bureau to establish a uniform system of birth and death registration for the entire country. At the time, only 15 states and the District of Columbia had established a central filing system; by 1919, all states had legislation that required such registration even if strict enforcement did not occur (Jacobson 1959). Despite these advances in statistical gathering procedures, as late as the mid-twentieth century only three-fourths of the states had a provision for recording marriages and about one-half for divorces (Newman 1950).

In 1877, the first government database on marriage and divorce was formed, and Walter F. Willcox conducted the inaugural examination of the data (1891, 1893, 1897). Since then, there has been a significant deal of public discourse as numerous analysts utilize the vital statistics data to challenge parts of what was to become a complex social matrix including the structure and function of the institution of the family.

In the 1950s, it was hypothesized that divorce was more prevalent among lower socioeconomic levels and that the highly publicized divorces of prominent middle- to upper-class individuals generated an inaccurate impression of the incidence of divorce in the United States (Monahan 1955). In the late 1980s, it was asserted that two-thirds of first marriages would result in divorce (Martin and Bumpass 1989). Following this claim, White (1990), arguing that divorce is a macro-level problem, wrote that “A shift in the lifetime divorce probability from 10% to well over 50% cannot be explained at the micro level” (p. 904).

Such a view of and debate over marriage and divorce issues continues in the contemporary experience, prompted in part by the findings reported and commentary attributed to analysts such as Martin and Bumpass (1989), Riley 1991, and Cherlin (1992). Andrew J. Cherlin wrote (1992:7) that “During the 1980s the divorce rate declined slightly but remained high enough that about half of marriages, at current rates, would end in divorce.” Cherlin (1992) also observed that divorce “rates in the 1980s, although stable, still imply that about half of all the marriages begun in the mid-1970s will end in divorce or separation” (p. 30). Such information is also cited in the most learned of reference publications, as noted by Norton and Miller (1992) and Kurz (2001:3811), for example, who, drawing upon Cherlin (1992), among others, state, “The USA has one of the highest divorce rates—50 percent of all marriages now end in divorce.” Because of the respectable position these analysts hold, other analysts make good use of the information to further perpetuate the myth of a 50 percent divorce rate. For example, Ruggles (1997), in citing Cherlin’s work, stated, “Only about 5% of marriages contracted in 1867 were expected to end in divorce, but over one-half of marriages contracted in 1967 are expected to end in divorce” (p. 455). And of course, publications that champion women’s issues cannot neglect the divorce problem, as noted in Deborah Perry’s discussion on the economy: “with more than half of marriages ending in divorce, many stay-at-home women may not be entitled to the Social Security benefits of their former spouses” (Malveaux and Perry 2003:109).

Due to its seeming veracity, the common perception of a 50 percent divorce rate dominated the later decades of the twentieth century, and the myth continues to persist in the early years of the twenty-first. Despite its legendary quality, the presumed high divorce rate placed the institution of marriage and the event of divorce at the center of a core of societal concerns that confront our sensibilities. Indeed, since the publishing of the first public report of marriage and divorce statistics around one hundred years ago, tales of a more golden past surrounding marriage and the institution of the family have been prevalent (Calhoun 1917, 1919; Coontz 1992, 2000, 2005). However, rigorous analysis of the data demonstrates that the myth of a 50 percent divorce rate is not substantiated by social facts.

A discussion of the incidence and rate of marriage and divorce, as well as the debunking of the myth that the United States has a 50 percent divorce rate, is supported by official government documents. In the following sections, these data are applied to the historical and present marriage and divorce experience in the United States. These official statistics reveal that the prevalent myth of a reduction in the conventional family structure and the continuous exponential expansion of the U.S. divorce rate constitute an unsubstantiated social construct.

Some concerns related to the study of marriage and divorce are discussed in the sections that follow. Newman (1950) noted, however, that these topics cannot be studied in isolation because the study of marriage and divorce is related to vast changes in a complex social order that necessitate an investigation into the cultural, social, political, and economic aspects of the family, as well as changes in the structure and function of the family. If this evaluation was accurate more than fifty years ago, the message may be even more pertinent in the early twenty-first century.

The History of Marriage and Divorce

If civilization is to be founded on family life, then marriage also is essential. The family in its current form emerged during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the conjugal family developed concomitant with the soon-tobe-discovered concept “childhood.” At that point in time and over the next two centuries, the primary task of the family was to train and nurture children; family life became increasingly oriented toward children. Thus, the modern family developed the concept “home” with its characteristics to include privacy, isolation, and the domestic life (O’Neill 1967:4–6). The history of the marriage institution and the cross-cultural complexity of divorce became well chronicled in an early-twentieth-century three-volume treatise titled A History of Matrimonial Institutions. Written by George Elliott Howard and published in 1904, this grand, scholarly series addressed the vast accumulated knowledge of marriage and divorce within a global context. Published during a period when many interesting questions were being raised about the family institution (see, e.g., Shively’s ([1853, 1889] 1975) edited work Love, Marriage, and Divorce, and the Sovereignty of the Individual: A Discussion between Henry James, Horace Greeley, and Stephen Pearl Andrews ), a previously unpublished work by Stephen Pearl Andrews (1975, edited by Shively) titled Love Marriage, and the Condition of Women, and the references found in the cross-cultural and regional comparative analyses of Willcox (1893), such resources established the import that subsequent research would offer policymakers of the future.

Walter Willcox’s demographic work was the first influential empirical assessment of marriage and divorce and helped to establish the foundation for future population analyses. But the first scholarly American study of the family appears to have been published in 1887 by Charles F. Thwing ([1913] 1887), a minister and later university president, whose analysis of divorce led to the belief that excessive individualism and modern secularism were the root causes of the divorce problem (as cited in O’Neill 1967:170–71). Thirty years later, Arthur W. Calhoun’s three-volume set Social History of the American Family (1917–1919) was to serve social analysts and policymakers well. In the latter instance, the important sociological inquiry into the family institution helped to establish a university-level curriculum for the developing discipline of sociology.

A more limited but no less important inquiry into the history of American divorce is offered by Blake (1962), whose work builds upon the issue of “migratory divorce” raised by Cavers (1937) a generation earlier. Blake’s questions about the conservative New York State’s position on divorce led him to further explore the issue on a national basis, especially as it led to Nevada’s liberal divorce laws. Willcox (1893:90), on the other hand, recognized long before Nevada’s developing reputation that states like Rhode Island offered more liberal opportunities, including divorce, to the residents of New York State.

The rapid expansion of the American frontier as a result of pioneering, the rise of industrialism and urbanization, and the improvement of living conditions in the northern United States had significant effects on the evolution of the American family. This included a greater emphasis on marriage, early marriage for both men and women, and high birth rates to ensure big families (Calhoun 1918:11–25). The following statement illustrates the cultural necessity of these early Americans. Marriage, according to Lowie (1933), is human mating that receives moral appraisal

according to the norms distinctive of each society. Marriage denotes those unequivocally sanctioned unions which persist beyond sensual satisfaction and thus come to underlie family life. It is therefore not coextensive with sex life, which embraces matings of inferior status in the social scheme of values. (P. 146)

As observed by Coontz (1992, 2000, 2005), a single standard definition of marriage is difficult to create due to the wealth of cross-cultural anthropological study literature (see, for example, Lowie 1933). However, marriage is a sort of cooperation between the sexes designed to ensure the perpetuation and ultimate survival of the species (Hankins 1931).

Despite conceptual difficulties, marriage and divorce are two family-related issues that have been the subject of extensive discussion, analysis, and criticism for over 125 years. Arthur W. Calhoun (1917) stated that the American family institution is the outcome of three evolutionary phases: “the complex of medieval tradition . . . on the basis of ancient civilization . . . ; the economic transition from medieval landlordism to modern capitalism; and the influence of environment in an unfolding continent” (p. 13).

Later, in the third volume of a series on the history of the American family, this author indicated that systematic study of the family began in earnest around the same time as the introduction of early inventions (i.e., the telephone, the incandescent lamp, the trolley car, and the typewriter) into American culture, each of which was to have dramatic effects on communications and transportation (Calhoun 1919:7–10). Similarly, Ogburn and Nimkoff (1955:iii) note that changes in the American family and family living from the early 1800s are influenced by what they describe as three clusters of inventions and discoveries: steam and steel, contraceptives, and the numerous scientific discoveries that have influenced religious beliefs. Almost ninety years after the publication of Calhoun’s family treatise, it is acceptable to assert that the American family institution continues to be influenced by a fluid social context, even though the economic forces that thrive today are vastly different from those of the past.

Official records of marriage behavior collected and maintained by states can be traced back to the act of 1842, when Massachusetts began collecting marriage data, including information on age, sex, and place of birth (Monahan 1951). According to Willcox (1893) and Jacobson (1959), the first state censuses to contain information on marital status were those of Michigan in 1854 and New York in 1855. Twenty years later, numerous additional states began collecting comparable census data. However, the national effort to gather and analyze data did not emerge until many decades later, when Willcox (1891, 1893, 1897) applied newly learning methods to a number of demographic analysts’ areas of interest. Interestingly, Willcox (1893) notes the following: “Only in five states, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Ohio, and in the District of Columbia, can the number of marriages be obtained with approximate completeness for each of the twenty years [1867–1886]” (p. 73).

Divorce has long been of interest to sociologists, and the topic has even been cast in importance alongside other social problems. Witness the effort of one eugenics-oriented author, D. George Fournad (1929), who wrote in the Journal of Educational Sociology,

The unfortunate fact . . . remains that the homes of millions of farmers, miners, laboring men, and especially bootblacks are actually cursed by six or more poorly brought up, if not perfectly neglected children, for no other reason than the lack of eugenics or the need of birth-control information. Small wonder that crime, insanity, suicide, homicide, divorce, and physical or mental degeneration are steadily on the increase. (P. 179)

Other observers, however, are more positive, noting that Puritan settlers in the 1600s introduced divorce to the American colonies, where it has a long and venerable tradition (Howard 1909:767). Howard demonstrates that the divorce process has experienced four centuries of liberalization. Long before the twentieth century, moralists, theologians, and statesmen debated the societal implications of a liberal divorce policy. In essence, then, the institution of divorce in the United States was active and expanding well before late-twentieth-century Americans brought it to its present level (Riley 1991:3).

Some of the earliest sociological observers of divorce and its rise lament the decline of the conventional family while describing its demise. However, the incidence of divorce was not the only cause for concern. Rather, divorce was considered at the turn of the twentieth century as “an evil which gravely threatens the social order, which threatens our most profound thought, our most mature wisdom, and our most persistent courage and endeavor” (Howard 1909:767). This is the same complaint that Riley (1991) claims originated in the late 1800s during the Victorian era, which has been designated by some modern alarmists as the model for family life. However, according to Coontz (2005:2–3), each generation over the past 100 years seems dissatisfied with the current arrangement, believing that the marriage connections of their parents and grandparents were significantly more satisfying.

Despite disparities in attitudes regarding divorce across the northern and southern parts of the United States, religious influences were unable to prevent divorce from being regarded as a social safety valve that insures the continuation of marriage (O’Neill 1967:6–10). From this perspective, divorce is not a sign of a failing family system, but rather a characteristic of Victorian patriarchal and industrial households. However, within the postindustrial/postmodernist family, there are still echoes of worry around the proper roles of the husband and wife and their children.

Some contemporary social critics view a high divorce rate as a threat to the institution of marriage, while condemning the liberal legislation that encourages this conduct as weakening traditional family stability. However, the idea that the demise of the patriarchal family is congruent with the movement toward political democracy that shaped American children and young people over the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries has been overlooked (Calhoun 1918:53). The findings presented in the remainder of the research paper tend to support this assertion. However, such lamentations and the image of an ideal, conventional marriage that is constantly in the past are neither new nor have they become so after the passage of the No-Fault Divorce Act. In fact, it has a considerably longer history. Witness the opinion crafted by Justice Thornton in Martin v. Robson, 1872:

The maxims and authorities and adjudications of the past have faded away. The foundations hitherto deemed so essential for the preservation of the nuptial contract, and the maintenance of the marriage relation, are crumbling. The unity of husband and wife has been severed . . . she no longer clings to and depends upon man. (as cited in Vernier 1935:3)

Moreover, Howard (1904:1–160) documents that during the colonial period, it was established that there would exist a free and tolerant divorce policy, and throughout the century following the founding of the United States, divorce legislation was liberalized even further. And during the mid-nineteenth century, social analysts such as Stephen Pearl Andrews (1975:12–13) recognized that despite the need to provide for and succor children, divorce might be a necessary option to maintaining a relationship between two individuals who never loved one another or who may have ceased to love.

As the legal dissolution of marriage, divorce is a cultural problem-solving technique (Honigmann 1953), and it is a normal remedy for those who are in less-than-fortunate family situations (Blake 1962:iii). John J. Honigmann (1953:38) recognized that divorce is a standardized social response that people employ to change their interpersonal relationships, and, as indicated by Hankin (1931:177), divorce is designed to relieve hardships placed upon and experienced by individuals because of customary marriage rules. And like marriage, divorce also

is a product of social evolution, therefore it is normal and to be accepted . . . inasmuch as certain functions of the parent have passed to the state we must begin to reconcile ourselves to the idea of state care of children to the virtual exclusion of home influence. (Calhoun 1919:10)

According to Calhoun (1919:7–10), the National Divorce Reform League, which began in the early 1880s, and in 1897 became the National League for the Protection of the Family, developed its focus on “existing evils relating to marriage and divorce” (p. 8). Although the extent of the poverty and divorce were unknown at the time, some analysts thought of poverty and divorce as important components of the emerging sociological studies of the family. In Volume III of the three-volume treatise Social History of the American Family, Calhoun documents this emerging relationship through the writings of analysts of the late nineteenth century who were looking into the “divorce question” and the “problems of marriage and divorce.” Many questions were raised, including those relating to polygamy, charity, and children as well as education, economics, politics, and religion—each of these issues and related questions was raised within the context of the lack of information pertaining to the 1880s’American family.

A false idea once implanted is hard to dislodge, and the difficulty of dislodging it is proportional to the ignorance of those holding the idea. (George Cantor’s law of the conservation of ignorance)

The mythology surrounding the American divorce rate is supported by individuals who develop what Sears et al. (1988:98) refer to as the “illusory correlation.” Thus, two factors, the “high divorce rate” and the perceived “breakdown of the family” as a viable social institution, are believed to be highly correlated. Both factors may be contrary to commonly shared set of values, but repeated exposure to such illusory correlation stimuli is consistent with Canter’s law of the conservation of ignorance: Myth eventually assumes the character of a social fact. Within this context, the news media and responsible citizens establish a portion of the public agenda that is based on an inappropriate social reality of the U.S. divorce problem. Dissemination of information in which the work of scholars is either misinterpreted or misrepresented serves to perpetuate social myths (see, for instance, Norton and Miller 1992:1; Kurz 2001).

The lack of public information is also important. In quoting a number of prominent analysts of divorce, Hurley (2005) noted the following:

Part of the uncertainty about the most recent trends (in marriage and divorce) derives from the fact that no detailed annual figures have been available since 1996, when the National Center for Health Statistics stopped collecting detailed data from states on the age, income, education and race of people who divorce. (P. D57)

Perhaps because of the more recent paucity of information, some analysts of the past contributed information that continues to receive notoriety (see, for example, Martin and Bumpass 1989; Cherlin 1992). Despite the fact that Cherlin did not have access to actual data to support his contention, he predicted that approximately one-half of the marriages contracted during the 1970s would end in divorce. Further misunderstanding emerges. In assessing the rise of divorce and separation in the United States during the period from 1880 to 1990, for example, Ruggles (1997), citing Cherlin’s work, stated, “Only about 5% of marriages contracted in 1867 ended in divorce, but over one-half of marriages contracted in 1967 are expected to end in divorce” (p. 455).

William L. O’Neill observes that divorce was rare during the eighteenth century, and, according to Jacobson (1959) and Furstenberg (1990:382), during the 1800s formal divorce was difficult to obtain; thus dissolution of some marriages resulting from desertion were undercounted. But as shown in Table 1, during the next century, marriage and divorce were considered important enough to warrant official documentation, an accounting that began under the stewardship of Carroll D. Wright, then Commissioner of Labor (Dike 1889:592).

The first assessment of the American marriage and divorce question was addressed by Walter F. Willcox (1891, 1893, 1897). Portions of the data shown in the tables reported in this section are from these initial reports. These data beg the question as to why the myth of the 50 percent divorce rate prevails. One possible explanation may lie in the salience of attitude toward divorce reported by Peck (1993). Since the passage of the No-Fault Divorce Act in 1972, divorce, a fairly common event during the final decades of the twentieth century, emerged as a subject of considerable debate with important social policy implications. First, divorce is considered problematic when the union dissolution affects children. This is especially true when the quality of family life in terms of social, economic, and health-related factors for women and children, affected by diminished financial resources, is at risk (Furstenberg 1990). Divorce thus remains a salient issue, especially in terms of the conservative public attitude toward so-called traditional family values.

Evaluation of marriage and divorce in the United States is possible based on data from 1867 to the early twentyfirst century. Included in these data are those published in the first statistical study conducted in the United States and the national vital statistics gathered throughout the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Marriage and divorce data for 1887 to 1906 first became available in 1908, and sociologists quickly acknowledged the information as representing a “great report” (Howard 1909:766). The data shown in Table 1 are from this first effort to offer an overall view of marriage and divorce in the United States. The researchers avoided reporting data in Part 1, actually reported in 1909, due to general underreporting/nonreporting jurisdictions. Indeed, Calhoun’s (1919:199) assessment of these initial numbers indicates that few jurisdictions outside New England did anything more than supply some numbers. But it is noteworthy that the period from 1896 to 1905, according to Calhoun (1919), was “distinctly prone to marriage” (p. 199) and divorce, which Howard (1909:776) argued was frequent in the two most enlightened and democratic nations in the world, namely, the United States and Switzerland.

     Table 1

Clifford Kirkpatrick (1968) argues that divorce is an imperfect index of marital and social disorganization. The reason is straightforward: There can be disorganization in the family without divorce. This is one oft-cited reason why the divorce laws have liberalized in Western societies from the early to mid-twentieth century (Kurz 2001). Moreover, when the modern family became the dominant form during the nineteenth century, divorce became much more common (O’Neill 1967). Then, during the Progressive Era from approximately 1880 to 1919, a more liberal interpretation of marriage and divorce arose among the urban, industrial middle class. Indeed, O’Neill (1967:viii) found that as the Victorian family was to represent the ideal throughout the nineteenth century, divorce was to become the first in a series of adjustments that emerged from the clash between ideas surrounding the patriarchal family and the new sexual ethic arising in turn from the new urban, industrial society.

Despite the suggested inaccuracy of the data and ofttimes inconsistent method in recording and reporting procedures through which these data were gathered, at least some data are available. During the 40-year period from 1867 to 1906, a total of 1,274,341 divorces were reported in the then states, the District of Columbia, and the Indian Territory (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1908). As shown in Table 1, there is a steady increase in the number of divorces from 1867 on and in the number of marriages from 1887 to 1906. One would anticipate such a trend, given the growth of the general population during this same period. Yet this did not seem so logical to those analysts who defined divorce in problematic terms. Note the not-uncommon statement of the early twentieth century attributed to William Fielding Ogburn (1927),

In 1924, there was one divorce granted to about every 7 marriages performed indicates that divorce is very common. Moreover, the chances of a marriage entered in 1924 being broken by divorce may perhaps be nearer to 1 to 5 or 6 than 1 to 7. There were in 1924 about 15 to 16 times as many divorces as there were in 1870, and yet the population is only about 3 times as large. (P. 7)

A similar, albeit misguided, statement is even later attributed to Newman (1950:89), who looked at the numeric increases instead of the rates of marriage and divorce.

In Table 2, the divorce “granted to whom”—husband or wife category—for most of the period from 1887 to 1932 isshown.Althoughnotavailableforallyears,thepercentage column for “granted to wife” represents a statistic that is noteworthy. Without exception, for each year two-thirds or more of divorces granted are to the wife. The first data for calculating ratios noting the number of divorces per 1,000 marriages also are shown. With a few exceptions, notably the years 1913, 1918, 1921, and 1922, the number of divorces increases throughout the period from 1887 to 1929. For the period from 1930 to 1932, however, the data show a moderate downward trend toward fewer divorces. With the exception of 1928 and the period from 1930 to 1932, the same observation can be made for marriages in that the trend in the marriage rate is downward.

     Table 2

Perhaps the most important aspect of these rich data is the fact that they were to serve well the needs of an admiring and ever-growing community of scientists, and these analysts began to raise important theoretical and methodological cause-and-effect questions. Prominent among these early sociologists was George Elliott Howard (1909), whose interest in the complexities of sex, marriage, and the family and especially the role education might play in solving social problems led him to focus on the officially recorded cause of divorce. Other less obvious reasons for establishing the importance of causal factors of what became known as a “divorce movement” included the excessive use of liquor and the platform advocated by the Temperance Movement.

The most frequently cited legal ground, as noted by Hankins (1931) and shown in Tables 3a, b, and c, represents the legally recognized grounds for divorce—namely, adultery, cruelty, desertion, drunkenness, and neglect to provide. Each was common during the period from 1887 to 1891 and for some time thereafter, lending support to the contention by Flexner and Fitzpatrick ([1908] 1996), who, in 1908, wrote, “Women were only granted divorces in instances of ‘adultery, desertion, non-support, and extreme cruelty.’” Other grounds for divorce, although less frequently cited, included bigamy, coercion, conviction of a crime, impotence, insanity, incompatibility, misconduct, fraudulent representation, vagrancy, infection with venereal disease (Hankins 1931). But what is perhaps most interesting is that even though the legal reasons for divorce currently cited may be less offensive by virtue of the descriptor employed, the general reasons for dissolving marriages cited in the past continue in the present.

The numbers and causes of divorces granted to a husband and wife for the five-year periods for 1887 to 1906 (Table 3a) and for 1906 to 1932 (Tables 3b and c) are shown. As noted in Table 2, throughout the period 1887 to 1906 a total of 1,274,341 divorces were granted. Of this total, 428,687 divorces were granted to the husband; to the wife the number is almost double, at 845,652, and serves as testimony that the women’s movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries worked to gain recognition from the courts to allow the initiation of divorce on behalf of women. As one can ascertain from these data, in the United States this right was granted to women in the nineteenth century (Anderson and Wolchik (2001). The causal factors identified within a legal context seem to hold at least up to the mid-twentieth century, for which period Harmsworth and Minnis (1955:316) reported that the legal functional categories, such as extreme cruelty, desertion, adultery, and nonsupport, represent overt manifestations of the factors leading to divorce but these did not necessarily represent the causes of divorce.

      Table 3a

      Table 3b

      Table 3c

Despite such issues, the position assumed by Howard (1904:Vol. 3, pp. 1–160) appears to be supported by the data reported in Tables 3a, b, and c and Tables 4a and b: Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, divorce legislation became more liberalized, reflecting a social need caused by migratory expansion and social changes in attitudes toward the marital bond. Competing definitions of need and justifiable causes also are reflected in the diversity of state legislation, which led to liberal legislation and thereby an increased number of legally acceptable causes for divorce. By 1891, for example, Washington State’s code included 11 causes, of which at least one cause codified a previous more abstract cause.

      Table 4a

      Table 4b

To this point the data raise interesting issues as to whether the traditional family some contemporary critics argue existed in the past did in fact really exist. Based on these five-year-period data, images of the traditional family may have been just that—images but not necessarily a reality of positive marital bliss. Some interesting findings reported in Tables 3a, b, and c include “adultery” and “desertion.” Although the data for divorces granted to the wife based on allegations of adultery and desertion are most extensive, the divorce data for these same categories granted to the husband also are noteworthy. Other categories include cruelty, a combination of causes granted to the wife. Such historical times hardly seem idyllic. Perhaps it can also be suggested that the reasons cited for divorce have not changed since 1887, albeit the contemporary law allows categories such as irretrievable breakdown of the marriage, incompatibility, or irreconcilable differences to serve as the more general reasons for filing for divorce, reasons allowed even if the divorce being sought is not mutually agreeable (Kurz 2001:3811). But other causes include crimes against nature, impotency, conviction of a felony and imprisonment, pregnancy prior to marriage, and unknown factors.

As with the information reported in Tables 3a, b, and c, the data in Tables 4a and b show the proportion of divorce by cause granted to husband and to wife. These data are broken down into proportions for the periods 1887 to 1927 and 1930 to 1932. Again, the “adultery” cause for divorce granted to husband is noteworthy as is the steady decreasing trend for this specific category. Of course the opposite effect for the “adultery” cause is noted for the “granted to wife” category. Focusing on the “desertion” cause category, the percentages are markedly consistent information pertaining to the sexual behavior of the throughout the entire periods from 1887 to 1927 and from 1930 to 1932 for both the husband and the wife.

Finally, the incompleteness of the data for the early 1930s is attributed to the fact that Congress mandated that the Marriage and Divorce study in progress since the early part of the century cease after publication of the 1932 study phase. By 1959, analysts such as Jacobson (1959) emphatically stated that marriage and divorce statistics represent the least developed branch of American vital statistics even though national data on divorce were available for many years before such information was available for births and deaths (p. 9).

Table 5 shows the 1921 to 1989 three-year average data for marriage and divorce. The three-year average rates increase from 1921 to 1923 up to the 1978 to 1980 period, and then a modest decline throughout the decade of the 1980s is documented. More important perhaps is that these data are from the oft-cited U.S. government report referred to above. It is important to recognize the historical rise and fall in the rate of first marriages. When placed within an historical context to include the relative prosperity of the 1920s, the Depression years, World War II, the tranquil years of the 1950s, and then the more activist years of the 1960s and 1970s, these data provide interesting American people.

      Table 5

Frank F. Furstenberg Jr. (1990) suggests that “Americans have always had a higher propensity to divorce than do Europeans and people of North Atlantic Countries,” a contention that receives empirical support from sources such as the Statistical Office of the European Communities report covering the 1960 to 1988 period. Although the United States is shown to have the highest divorces per 1,000 married women, the same reports indicate that the United States also had the highest marriages per 1,000 persons for this period.

The incidence, rate, and ratio of marriages reported for the United Status during the period from 1887 to 2004 are reported in Table 6. Although the data on the number of marriages are incomplete for the entire period, they are both interesting and suggestive. Ranging from a low of 7.9 for the year 1932 (the heart of the Depression period) and then 7.6 for 2003 and 2004 to a high of 16.4 in 1946 (the end of World War II), the marriage rate had been declining or at a steady state since the peak period from 1980 to 1982. The rates recorded for 2002 through 2004 are the lowest since 1932, at which time the 7.9 rate was the lowest ever recorded for the United States. Trendwise, the highest marriage rate for the entire 118-year period was during 1940 to 1950 or just prior to and immediately after World War II.

      Table 6

Finally, the ratios are important as well. Because of their refinement (but missing for the final decade of the twentieth century and the early twenty-first century), the ratios that are reported in this table may be more representative of the state of marriage.

Calvin L. Beale (1950) recognized the important role separation held as a factor in divorce, especially from the year 1940 onward, a period that includes the years prior to, during, and in the aftermath of World War II. Aside from couple separation as a major factor, as shown in Table 6, an upward trend in the divorce rate can be observed for the period from 1961 to 1981. Since 1981, however, the divorce rate declined, ranging between 5.2 and 4.0. The persistent myth of an increasing U.S. divorce problem may be attributed in part to a focus on the number of marriages and divorces recorded annually, rather than the divorce rate.

In Table 7, the rate of divorce and annulments for the United States during 1887 to 2004 are presented. Most noteworthy is the declining divorce rate since the year 1981, at which time a high of 5.3 per 1,000 population was recorded. The estimates for the years 2003 and 2004, 3.7 and 3.8, respectively, are the lowest since 1972, one year prior to the passage of the California No-Fault Divorce Act legislation.

      Table 7

Use of the ratio for the years from 1920 to 1996 offers a more balanced representation of divorce in the United States. The highest divorce ratio recorded officially is for the year 1979 (22.8). Early ratios offered by the federal government were the number of divorces divided by marriages for a given year; such data are not useful and tend to offer some modest if ill-informed support to the mythical oft-cited 50 percent divorce rate. The empirical facts differ from the myth. Indeed, the data show that after peaking to a high in 1979 (5.3 and 22.8, respectively), the U.S. divorce rate has decreased beginning in 1982 (5.0 and 21.7).

The reaction to divorce data represents an emotional response to social change, and this reaction may be especially noteworthy when the effect of divorce influences the delivery of social services. One example is the national concern that a large number of children from single-parent families are denied the requisite financial support to allow them the opportunity to prepare for the future. This concern has generated policies to make parents, especially males, more financially accountable for the well-being of their children (Anderson and Wolchik 2001). But the traditional view that men were responsible for women throughout their entire life changed with the passage of the no-fault divorce legislation. Women are now expected to provide their own support through employment to be supplemented by child support and an equal distribution of property (Kurz 2001:3811).

Second, as noted by Sears et al. (1988:134–135), the social milieu affects salience. More than a generation of conservative thinking and a changed economy affect social values. The divorce and marriage rates also may be affected by the economic conditions of the late 1980s and early 1990s that prompted people to consider the financial effects of divorce. The reasons for this kind of decision, such as “for the sake of the children,” “the cost of making two housing payments,” and “to keep intact an estate,” are similar to those reported after research carried out by Cuber and Harroff (1966) in a classic study of the attitudes held by upper-middle-class Americans toward maintaining an unhappy marriage. Another salient factor is the emotional desire to bond to one individual and the strong public attitude toward AIDS. Such external constraints, according to Sears et al. (1988:136), are likely to be salient factors that continue to target divorce as a social issue of import. In addition, the experience of growing up in a single-parent home, according to Dickinson and Leming (1990), is the cause of people viewing marriage differently compared with the past.

However, any discussion of the nature and origin of civil laws in debates over divorce remain relatively unexplored. If introduced into such discussions, evaluation of divorce law usually is confined to family law or the no-fault divorce statutes of the 1970s, especially the California Act of 1973. Thus, the argument as to whether the no-fault divorce laws are the cause or an effect of the U.S. divorce rate continues unabated. What is known is that the statutes currently referred to as “no-fault divorce” eliminate the requirement of providing proof in a court of law, as was required under common law, that one of the marital partners had engaged in adultery or some other act unacceptable to the marital relationship. No-fault divorce statutes eliminate the need to enumerate anything derogative as a sufficient ground for divorce. In other words, the no-fault divorce legislation eliminates the requirement to provide potentially damaging evidence by providing for the dissolution of a marriage based on the finding that the relationship is no longer compatible or viable (www.law.cornell.edu—retrieved January 23, 2003). Other acceptable reasons that lie outside the incriminating criteria used under the common law now include irreconcilable differences and incompatibility.

In the sixteenth century, reformists viewed divorce as the medicine for the disease of marriage, while in 1919 Calhoun observed that the American people demonstrate a remarkable inclination toward marriage, a statement that was supported by the census of 1890 and the census Special Reports Marriage and Divorce 1867–1906 (U.S. Bureau of the Census 1908, 1909). In 1933, Robert H. Lowie wrote, “It may be safely predicted . . . that the future of marriage will be shaped not merely by utilitarianism but largely on the basis of pregnant ideologies (p. 154). And in 1931, Hankin observed, “Divorce, a symptom of the liberalizing tendencies of modern culture, seems likely to increase as long as underlying conditions continue their present trends” (p. 184). Such statements hold a general appeal—the ideas are not spatially bound or time bound—so that it may be safe to predict that a similar statement offers to forecast the initial decades of the twenty-first century. Witness the early returns. During the first three years of this century, the marriage rate averaged 8.1 per 1,000 population, while the yearly divorce rate averaged 4.0 per 1,000 population. These figures also characterize the final two decades of the twentieth century in that the marriage and divorce rates were lower than in previous years and both these rates declined throughout the final years of the past millennium. Indeed, the rate of divorce in the United States is at its lowest level since 1971, and this downward trend will probably continue or at least remain steady if only because of yet another trend observed by Norton and Miller (1992). These analysts documented the decline in the percentage of ever-married males and females between 1975 and 1990, thereby providing the evidence essential to understanding more recent marriage and divorce patterns in the United States.

Although some modest efforts to counter the myth of the 50 percent divorce rate do occur (see Hurley 2005), this misconception continues because it is reinforced by the news media, clerics, government officials, and even portions of the academic community. The data simply do not support this public misperception. A doubling of the divorce rate was a trend that occurred between 1940 and 1972. The divorce rate increased to 5.3 per 1,000 by 1981, and the decline in the annual rate has occurred since that time, representing an important trend that suggests a return to what may be identified as the normalcy divorce rate. Still, resistance to this fact and the perpetuation of the myth that a 50 percent divorce rate is undermining the family institution will probably continue because of other unrelated salient social issues. As Carter’s law of the conservation of ignorance suggests, a false idea, once implanted, is difficult to dislodge from the human psyche.

Changing social mores throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and changes in the divorce laws removed the legal constrictions and social taboos pertaining to divorce, in turn providing important new perspectives on divorce (Cherlin 1992). Thus, any explanation of marriage and divorce that is inclusive of an historical perspective is to be valued. Within this context, the historical data and a sociohistorical assessment of these data serve to address two sociological issues: (1) Was historical family life as good as some analysts would have us believe? and (2) Is the present family bond as bad as the common wisdom suggests? In focusing on the marriage and divorce topic in this manner, insights that are essential to challenging a longstanding myth pertaining to the solidarity of the traditional family and the most misleading social myth pertaining to the 50 percent divorce rate can be explored.

The importance of economic factors and marital stability was not recognized until the 1940s (Goode 1951), when employment status, occupation, deviant behavior, and public assistance variables were first taken into consideration. Given the important changes in the role of women during the past one-half century, and the call among some reformers to again relegate women to the domestic role, findings such as those reported by Schoen et al. (2002) serve to enhance our current views of marriage and divorce. Past perceptions that dual careers pose a threat to the family and that a persistently high divorce rate will eventually undermine the very foundations of the family institution do not hold up to long-term scrutiny, and it is this kind of analysis of marriage and divorce that must be undertaken within the context of historical change (Scott 2001). Note, for example, that the wife’s employment status, according to Schoen et al. (2002), may be influenced by their labor force participation to end an unhappy marriage, but the wife’s employment status does not appear to affect happy couples. As these analysts note, “There is an interaction involving wife’s employment and marital happiness with marital disruption . . . [but] wife’s employment is not associated with increased risk of disruption when both partners are happy in their marriage” (p. 569).

Thus, it can be suggested that if the cyclical prediction offered by William Strauss and Neil Howe in The Fourth Turning (1997) has merit, then we can anticipate a continued movement toward an American bonding experience throughout the early decades of the twenty-first century, including interpersonal relationships that emphasize the importance of the family. Thus, the marriage rate should remain stable or increase while the divorce rate will also remain stable or decline. If the past does indeed provide a lesson, this fourth turning crisis may thus reunite society by providing the requisite common purpose to reenergize and regenerate society. One possible result is that families are again strengthened, major public order questions are resolved, and a new order is established (Strauss and Howe 1997:256).

The assessment of the contemporary family system in general and of divorce in particular can emerge from a minority point of view to become a part of the new perspective of what the family represents and how this emerging definition fits into the social structure. As noted by O’Neill (1967), and consistent with the historical context emphasis advocated by Cherlin (1992), the period from 1880 to about 1919 was and continues to be important for understanding why the American rate of divorce increased and for identifying the change in the public attitude toward divorce. Thus, it would be erroneous to argue that divorce was, currently is, and will in the future serve as a sign of decadence that is corrupting the family institution.

Thus, as the American society strives to enter into a new cycle or era in which everything seems to be as it should be, Furstenberg’s (1990:381) view that the rate of divorce during the 1980s reflects the state of role conflict and ambiguity within the marriage system can be used to explain the marriage system of the past 25 years. Referring to what he identifies as a voluntaristic form of marriage in the United States, Furstenberg argues that divorce has become an intrinsic part of the family system. Although it may take up to several decades of the twenty-first century to resolve most if not all of the issues that constitute the current “cultural wars,” the outcome of these wars will determine the overall status of the cohesiveness and social bonding elements of the American society, of which the family system remains the most important. In the past, the most important social issues were related to fairness and justice for women; at the end of the twentieth century (Galston 1996) and as we move well into the twenty-first century, the public and moral issues seem to be related to our commitment toward children, which, as noted by Calhoun (1919), also was the case at the end of the nineteenth century. Perhaps the themes Stephanie Coontz has established are most appropriate for the twenty-first century when exploring family issues involving “the way we never where” and “the way we really are” in books with these titles. Certainly, the move toward legal sanctions for civil marriages among gay and lesbian couples and the questions and problems attendant on such unions or pairings really do not differ significantly from those that we are accustomed to.

Although sociologists have long employed divorce data (see, e.g., Ogburn and Nimkoff 1955) and permanent separation data (Beale 1950) as indicators of instability, the limitations of such census data are severe, as Ruggles (1997) noted. Despite the call by then Chief Statistician of the Marriage and Divorce Analysis Branch of the National Office of Vital Statistics Samuel C. Newman (1950) for better vital statistics, and the declaration by White (1990) that bigger and better data sets were available during the 1980s, currently less information is available on marriage and divorce. In turn, we have less rather than more insights into the complex issues surrounding marriage and divorce (Ruggles 1997). But data-gathering problems and methodological issues certainly are not new, and such problems continue. During the 1800s, formal divorce was difficult to obtain, and, for this reason, dissolution of some marriages resulting from desertion were undercounted (Furstenberg 1990:382). Even so, the published historical data were more comprehensive than those available during the final decades of the twentieth century.

Changes in recording practices occurred during the last two-thirds of the twentieth century, and in 1996, the collection of detailed marriage and divorce data was suspended by the federal government because of limitations in the information collected by and from certain states as well as budgetary considerations. Although the total numbers and rates of marriages and divorces at the national and state levels are available in the National Vital Statistics Reports, the paucity of data available for public and scholarly consumption will undoubtedly continue well into the twentyfirst century. Moreover, the total picture will remain less well defined than in the past because of an increasing number and rate of informal marriages formed by cohabitation that will go unrecorded.

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Which social media platforms are most common, who uses each social media platform, find out more, social media fact sheet.

Many Americans use social media to connect with one another, engage with news content, share information and entertain themselves. Explore the patterns and trends shaping the social media landscape.

To better understand Americans’ social media use, Pew Research Center surveyed 5,733 U.S. adults from May 19 to Sept. 5, 2023. Ipsos conducted this National Public Opinion Reference Survey (NPORS) for the Center using address-based sampling and a multimode protocol that included both web and mail. This way nearly all U.S. adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race and ethnicity, education and other categories.

Polls from 2000 to 2021 were conducted via phone. For more on this mode shift, read our Q&A.

Here are the questions used for this analysis , along with responses, and  its methodology ­­­.

A note on terminology: Our May-September 2023 survey was already in the field when Twitter changed its name to “X.” The terms  Twitter  and  X  are both used in this report to refer to the same platform.

YouTube and Facebook are the most-widely used online platforms. About half of U.S. adults say they use Instagram, and smaller shares use sites or apps such as TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitter (X) and BeReal.

Note: The vertical line indicates a change in mode. Polls from 2012-2021 were conducted via phone. In 2023, the poll was conducted via web and mail. For more details on this shift, please read our Q&A . Refer to the topline for more information on how question wording varied over the years. Pre-2018 data is not available for YouTube, Snapchat or WhatsApp; pre-2019 data is not available for Reddit; pre-2021 data is not available for TikTok; pre-2023 data is not available for BeReal. Respondents who did not give an answer are not shown.

Source: Surveys of U.S. adults conducted 2012-2023.

Usage of the major online platforms varies by factors such as age, gender and level of formal education.

% of U.S. adults who say they ever use __ by …

• RACE & ETHNICITY
• POLITICAL AFFILIATION

This fact sheet was compiled by Research Assistant  Olivia Sidoti , with help from Research Analyst  Risa Gelles-Watnick , Research Analyst  Michelle Faverio , Digital Producer  Sara Atske , Associate Information Graphics Designer Kaitlyn Radde and Temporary Researcher  Eugenie Park .

Follow these links for more in-depth analysis of the impact of social media on American life.

• Americans’ Social Media Use  Jan. 31, 2024
• Americans’ Use of Mobile Technology and Home Broadband  Jan. 31 2024
• Q&A: How and why we’re changing the way we study tech adoption  Jan. 31, 2024

Find more reports and blog posts related to  internet and technology .

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